Displaced
by Knight Ranger
Summary: Star Trek Voyager #1.01: The series is rebooted as Captain Kathryn Janeway accepts a search and retrieve mission, only to see her ship cosmically battered, stolen by terrorists and her crew stranded on an irradiated world by a sinister childlike entity.
1. The Mission

**VIRTUAL TREK: THE ALTERNATE ADVENTURES**

_V-Trek was a fan-run project which intended to rewind the Star Trek franchise back to 1994 and send it in a new and hopefully better direction. On this 10th anniversary of its genesis, I'll be re-uploading the material we completed for its three shows: The alternate third season of Deep Space Nine, a complete reboot of Voyager and an all new series, Star Trek: Exeter. The following is a re-edited Director's Cut of our Voyager pilot, Displaced. Thanks go to Allen McDonnell, Chris Devlin, Jamie Brinkman, Catherine Bruce, Cathy Christian, Marion Willett and the rest of the team who made it a pleasure to work on._

* * *

**STAR TREK: VOYAGER #1.01 - DISPLACED**

_**Unhappy with a new treaty, Federation colonists along the Cardassian border have banded together. Calling themselves The Maquis, these colonists continue to fight the Cardassians.**_

_**Some consider them heroes, but to both the Federation and Cardassian governments, they are outlaws.**_

Phaser fire flashes across the viewscreen, illuminating the small bridge. Consoles explode to the Captain's left, making him wrap his foot even more tightly around the base of the pilot's chair. He ducks his head slightly as sparks from the console threaten to singe his close cropped hair. At the same time he types in a new sequence. "Initiating evasive pattern Omega, mark."

"Another fuel line has ruptured," B'Elanna shouts from the post to his right. "We're barely maintaining impulse. I can't get any more out of it."

Captain Chakotay swings the ship around again. "Be creative!"

The engineer explodes what he's sure is a Klingon expletive in his direction. "How the hell am I supposed to be creative with a thirty-nine year old rebuilt engine."

"Maquis ship!" The grey, leathery face of a mature Cardassian flashes onto the viewscreen. "This is Gul Evek of the Cardassian Fourth Order. Cut your engines and prepare to sur-" Chakotay interrupts his piloting only long enough to close the comm channel with the side of his hand.

Something shoves the ship from behind. "Shields at fifty percent," Tuvok reports from Tactical.

_Damn!_ Chakotay twists a look at B'Elanna. "I need more power if we're going to make it to the Badlands."

B'Elanna snorts. "Well we all need something don't we." She bites her lip frustratedly as she manipulates her console, then blinks as an idea hits her. "Take the weapons offline. We'll transfer _all_ power to the engines."

Tuvok lifts his head and arches an eyebrow. "Considering the current circumstances, I'd question that proposal at this time." The ship is rocked again as if to prove his point.

B'Elanna glares at him. "What does it matter? We're not making a dent in their shields anyway." Chakotay sighs and she turns her glare on him. "You wanted creative."

_Not wanted, didn't have a choice,_ Chakotay thinks bitterly. "Mariah?"

"I can handle the differential," the brown-haired woman to B'Elanna's side tells him.

Chakotay comes to his decision. "Tuvok, shut down all the phaser banks." He turns back to the engineer. "If you can give me another thirty seconds at full impulse, I'll get us there." B'Elanna nods quickly and gets to work.

"Phasers offline," comes Tuvok's voice.

Chakotay orders Tuvok to fire the remaining torpedoes and transfer power from those systems. The bolts of firepower shoot out of the ship's reverse cannons and impact on the warship's shields. "Are you reading any plasma storms ahead?"

"One," the Vulcan replies. "Co-ordinates one-seven-one mark four-three."

"That's where I'm going." The ship responds sluggishly to Chakotay's commands.

"Plasma storm density is increasing..."

Chakotay only vaguely hears Tuvok reciting the increases in density. He doesn't need to hear him. He can feel it with every move of the ship.

"The Cardassian ship is not reducing power. They're following us in."

"Gul Evek must be feeling daring today." Chakotay and the others watch as the Cardassian warship attempts to follow their path. It's not long though before a plasma discharge rips along the belly of their enemy.

"Their engines are disabled," Tuvok reports. "Gul Evek is sending out a distress signal on all Cardassian frequencies."

Chakotay smiles slightly as Mariah and B'Elanna turn and high-five each other. "Tuvok, can you plot a course through these plasma fields?"

"Storm activity is typically widespread in this vicinity. I can plot a course, but I'm afraid it will require an indirect route."

"Good. We can use the time to make some repairs." Chakotay stands up and moves away from the helm. He nearly smacks his head on the roof as he stretches his stiff back. He needs a rest, they all do. Before he can ponder this any further though, a white light strobes through the ship, ending almost as soon as it began. "What was that?"

"Curious!" Tuvok's voice cuts across the bridge. "We've just passed through some kind of coherent tetryon beam."

Chakotay's heart thumps in his chest. Could the Cardassians have developed new weaponry. "Source?" he asks, pushing the thought out of mind.

"Unknown," he answers, as Chakotay squeezes back in beside a frowning B'Elanna. "There now appears to be a massive displacement wave moving towards us."

"Another storm?"

"It is not a plasma phenomenon. The computer is unable to identify it."

"Put it on screen," Chakotay orders. He gazes as an ellipse of brilliant white light rushes towards them.

"At current speed it will intercept us in less than thirty seconds," Tuvok interjects.

Chakotay glances desperately across to B'Elanna. "Anything left in those impulse engines?"

She growls something in his general direction. "We'll soon find out." Her fingers play over the controls once more.

"It is still exceeding our speed," Tuvok cuts in.

Chakotay doesn't bother acknowledging. "Maximum power."

"You've got it already," B'Elanna shouts. "There's nothing left."

Chakotay prays silently. _Not like this. After everything we've been through, everything we've dreamed. Don't let us lose our lives like this_.

"The wave will intercept in 8 seconds... 5..."

Chakotay locks his feet around the base of the chair, his hands frozen to the control panel. He clenches his teeth, damning the Federation for the ill thought out treaty, damning the Cardassians for chasing them in here, and damning the explosion of nature that's about to slam into them.

The wave claws them open like a rotten fish until the ship streams its viscera a molecule wide into forever, into nowhere, into everywhere.

_Not like this!_

**[OPENING CREDITS]**

**Federation Space Station, Deep Space Nine.**

"Thomas Paris," Constable Odo says gruffly as a tall, light-haired man wearing the traditional grey of Federation prison clothing, walks out of the airlock on docking bay two, followed by a dark-skinned Starfleet Security officer. The prisoner's arms are behind him, his hands unwillingly locked together.

"The one and only," Tom responds, smirking at him.

Odo snorts as the guard taps quickly on a PADD and hands it over to him. "All yours," the officer tells DS9's resident shapeshifter as he roughly pushes Tom across, making him stumble slightly. "We'd appreciate it if you didn't return him."

"I'll see what we can do," Odo nods, with a little smirk all of his own. The officer turns on his heel and goes back through the airlock, the hatch closing behind him.

"He likes me really," Tom says brightly as Odo walks him out of the docking ring.

"I'm sure you're bosum buddies," Odo replies drily. After a minute of walking in silence, they both enter the turbolift. "Ops," Odo commands.

Tom looks sideways at the alien with the unfinished looking face. "Do you happen to know why I'm here? Not that I don't appreciate the chance of a vacation, but this place wasn't exactly what I had in mind."

"You'll find out when you get to the Commander's office," Odo says curtly. He doesn't like this propensity humans have for 'small talk'.

Tom shrugs and humours the Constable's obvious desire for silence. Eventually the doors slide back revealing Central Ops, which is its usual hive of activity. Tom looks around, quickly flashing the patented Paris smile at a woman with Trill markings, before he's forced up the steps to the office. Glancing back he sees the woman shake her head, but with an amused expression.

The doors part mechanically and Odo walks him inside. Standing behind the Cardassian control-desk is a woman in command uniform. His eyes instinctively land on her collar. Four pips. "I thought you said this was a Commander's office?" Tom asks idly, half-turning his head towards Odo.

"It is Mr Paris," the woman answers as Odo opens his mouth, then closes it again. "The current occupier though was kind enough to allow the use of it for this meeting."

"_Very_ kind of him," Tom drawls. He briefly studies this officer. Probably in the wrong half of thirty, but she could pass for younger without any wide stretch of the imagination. Neck length, russet coloured hair flatteringly frames a face which is free of age lines and her physique seems reasonably athletic, so she probably isn't stuck behind a desk in the course of her work. As Captains go, she's a positive looker.

"He's a she actually," the Captain says as she walks around the table, "but that doesn't matter right now." She sits casually on the edge of the table, ignoring Odo's fleeting look of disapproval. "I suppose you're wondering why you're here."

"The thought had crossed my mind once or twice," Tom replies neutrally.

"Well, allow me to introduce myself first." She smiles as she extends her hand. "The name's Kathryn Janeway."

Tom furrows his brow for a moment. "Love to oblige, Kathryn, but I don't think certain people trust me with my hands free."

"That's Captain to you," Odo growls at Tom, glaring at the inappropriate use of her first name.

Raising an eyebrow at Odo's tone, Kathryn stands and walks around Tom, seeing the handcuffs for the first time. "Are those really necessary?"

"He _is_ a prisoner, Captain," Odo tells her, getting increasingly confused. "It's standard procedure."

"Let me put that another way then. Remove them," she states firmly.

Odo can see that she's serious. Grumbling to himself, he inputs the release code on the small linking panel and the cuffs snap open. He takes them off and Tom with some relief starts rubbing his wrists.

"Now if you'd leave the room," Kathryn continues, "I'd like to talk with Mr Paris in private."

"Captain, you-" Odo begins to object.

Kathryn merely stares at him, bringing her index finger to her collar and tapping on the pips as if she's merely waiting for the Constable to move, not reminding him of her rank. With a faint shake of his head, Odo leaves the office, looking curiously at the Captain before the doors close again. Tom has to admit some empathy with the shapechanger at that moment. He knows most of Starfleet's rules inside and out and this is pretty irregular.

"It's Kathryn," she affirms to Tom after a moment, shaking his hand. "Protocol would prefer that you call me Captain, but I don't think this little discussion warrants the title. Contrary to popular belief, we're not on duty twenty-four hours a day." Her mouth quirks up in amusement as she makes her way back to the table and turns to lean on its edge.

Tom is surprised at her demeanor. Most officers once they reach the Captaincy lose all sense of humour. Privately he wonders if this is simply an act to butter him up for something.

Kathryn looks mildly concerned when he doesn't respond as she expects. "I hope that six months of prison hasn't resulted in you losing the capacity to smile?"

Tom forces a smile onto his face. This Captain is an odd one.

"Better. It isn't genuine, but it'll do."

Tom's face falls again. "Maybe if I had something to smile about," he tells her, folding his arms. He's getting impatient with whatever game she's playing. "What am I doing here?" He knows he's being impudent, but doesn't much care. What's the worst she can do?

"Mr Paris," she starts, then pauses. "May I call you Tom?" she asks, leaning forward slightly.

"You can call me anything you want if it results in you getting to the point sometime before Christmas," he answers with more than a hint of sarcasm. It doesn't seem to faze the Captain any though.

"Alright Tom, here's a tale of mystery. An intelligence agent was assigned to infiltrate a Maquis vessel some time ago, but has missed every one of his timed communication windows for the last two weeks. Starfleet has declared the vessel officially missing."

"Maybe it's just the agent who's _missing_," Tom interrupts, playing devil's advocate.

"Maybe," Kathryn repeats, though clearly she doesn't believe that. "But here's where it gets interesting. The Cardassians _volunteered_ sensor information from one of their Galor Class warships, indicating the Maquis ship's destruction inside the Badlands, courtesy of a plasma storm. However our own scans show no sign of debris."

Tom shrugs. "A plasma storm doesn't necessarily leave any debris, if it's violent enough."

"True. But there would still be a warp core resonance trace somewhere in the area," Kathryn counters.

"No trace huh?" Tom thinks about that. "You're right, you have yourself a mystery. None of this tells me why I'm here though."

"I'm just getting to that part. You see I've been ordered to take my ship into the Badlands and find out exactly what's happened to both the Maquis vessel and our agent."

Tom smirks. "Good luck with that. I've never seen a Fleet ship that can manoeuver those storms."

A hint of a smile crosses Kathryn's lips. "You've never seen the Voyager. It's been specifically designed to operate in that kind of environment. Problem is none of our officers know the territory very well... which is where you step in."

Realisation quickly dawns. "You want me to guide you through the Badlands and help track down this ship." Kathryn's expression tells him that he's hit the nail on the head. "Why me?" he asks. "I was only with the Maquis a few weeks before I was captured. There're other prisoners with more information on the Badlands than I have."

Kathryn slowly stands up. "None of the others are familiar with this ship's Captain though."

Tom's curiosity is definitely piqued now. "So who is it?" he asks, when Kathryn doesn't offer the information right away.

"His name's Chakotay." She twists around and takes a PADD from the desk, glancing at it. Tom goes stock still at the mention of the Maquis' name, then nods in understanding at what else is required from him. "Rumour has it that the two of you didn't get on," Kathryn continues with an air of innocence as she lifts her eyes back to him.

"There's the understatement of the year," Tom informs her. "The guy's talked himself up onto this pedestal; the man who left Starfleet on principle to defend his home colony from the Cardassians. A noble man fighting for an honourable cause. Then I come along. A discommendated mercenary willing to fight for anyone who pays my bar bills. The antithesis of everything he stands for. He made no secret of the fact that he hated me. And you know what? The feeling's mutual."

"So naturally you'd jump at the chance to be the one who helps bring him in," Kathryn says quickly, reeling him in.

"Not so fast!"

Kathryn tilts her head as she taps the corner of the PADD to the palm of her other hand.

Tom eyes her for a long moment. "You're right, I'd love to see the big guy get his comeuppance. But first I need to know one thing. And I think you know what that is." He might as well go for broke here. A willing source is a more reliable one after all. She knows that, or at least she should.

Kathryn relaxes. This isn't anything she wasn't already expecting. Flipping the PADD round, she hands it over and lets Tom examine it. "One get out of jail free card," she tells him, "which will be signed, sealed and authorised as soon as we return to DS9. That _is_ what you were fishing for wasn't it."

Tom's mouth opens slightly. He expected he'd have to haggle, but this needs no counter offer. "How did you...?"

"I have my connections," Kathryn tells him enigmatically. Tom's mouth involuntarily upturns as he realises this is real. "Now there's a genuine smile," she says. "See, you can do it when you try."

"I guess so." He looks at her slightly puzzled as she takes back the PADD and makes her way around the desk, sitting down in the piece of furniture actually designed for that purpose for the first time since he walked in. "You know, you don't act much like any Captain I've met."

"I should hope not," Kathryn replies with a mock shudder. "They're all so dreadfully stuffy." She taps at the controls for a moment. "We leave tomorrow at zero-nine-hundred. In the meantime I've assigned you quarters to spend the night in and some replicator credits for food, clothing, etcetera." She looks him over. "No offence, but you don't suit prison grey."

"I never thought so either," Tom agrees ruefully.

"Please give this to the Transporter Chief upon your arrival," she says as she stands up and hands him a different PADD. "I'll see you on board in the morning. Docking pylon three."

Taking that as his cue to leave, Tom nods once and walks out of the door, looking vaguely smug as he's greeted by Odo's stern face again. The Security Chief exchanges a look with Kathryn, then harrumphs before escorting the uncuffed Tom to the habitat ring.

The doors push together and Kathryn is left alone. So that was Tom Paris. "Nice to have met you at last," she whispers to herself, before looking back down at the launch schedule.


	2. Dinner for Three

As he leans on the bar, Tom glances in his bottle, seeing the reflection of the two guards that have been tailing him ever since he left his temporary quarters. They obviously think they're being clever by keeping their distance. Idiots! It's a blatant waste of time anyway. He's not going to do anything even vaguely off-base, not when he's this close to freedom. That Janeway must have some pull in the Justice Department to have arranged the deal she offered him, especially given how hard Starfleet are cracking down on Maquis. Going public was a double-edged sword. To gain recognition, the Maquis pinned a major target on themselves.

Mentally shrugging to himself, he drains the rest of the bottle and leaves it on the counter. Funny, having real alcohol again after six months enforced abstention wasn't as good as he expected. Probably just as well. It wouldn't look good if he turned up on the Voyager tomorrow with a hangover. He walks out of Quark's and onto the promenade. It's busier than he remembers, but considering the last time he was here was when the Cardassians pulled out, it's not surprising. All his old friends have probably long since moved on.

"Tom Paris!" a voice sounds from behind him.

Then again. Tom whirls around to see a face he wasn't sure he'd ever see again. "Nerys?"

"You sound surprised?" Kira smiles as she steps up to him.

"It's been a while," Tom replies as they hug briefly. He runs an eye over her as they part. "Looking good, Nerys. Or should I be calling you Major now?" he says as he takes in her insignia. "Quite a step up in the world."

"Well, it comes with the job. You can't be Executive Officer of a space station and still hold Lieutenant's rank, can you," she says just a little proudly.

"Keeping Starfleet on their toes, huh?" he grins. "Can't think of anyone better suited to it."

Kira's expression becomes enquiring. "How have you been?"

Tom gives her his stock answer. She doesn't need to know the gory details. "Same old."

"Tom, I know what happened to you. When I heard that you'd been captured on Altair Six, I prayed to the Prophets for it to be just another rumour."

Tom sighs as he looks at her. He should've known she'd find out. "I was expecting my luck to run out eventually. It was just a matter of when."

"It shouldn't have happened at all if you ask me." She narrows her eyes slightly. "Sometimes I wonder about Federation justice."

Tom just shrugs in response. Politics and justice rarely mix, even in the vaunted United Federation of Planets.

Kira can tell that he's not comfortable with the subject, so reluctantly moves on. "So what are you doing on the station? An early parole?" she fishes.

"Sort of. Seems Starfleet have this little problem they need fixing and I'm the best qualified for the job. After I'm done, they're cutting me loose."

"This little problem doesn't have anything to do with the Voyager does it?"

Tom smiles. "Nothing gets past you does it."

"Not on this station."

"O'Brien to Kira. Is there a problem, Major?" Kira's commbadge cuts in.

Her eyes drift to one side as she gives it a quick tap. "No problem, Chief. I'll be down in three minutes." She taps it again to break comms and looks apologetically at Tom. "Station business I'm afraid. I'm covering for Commander Sisko while he's back on Earth."

Tom quickly connects the dots. So it was Nerys who gave Janeway use of the office. "The Devil's work is never done," Tom jokes.

Kira struggles to avoid grinning as she rolls her eyes. "It's been too long. Do you want to stay here for a while when the Voyager returns?" she asks him. "We need to catch up properly."

Back in his cell, Tom had often thought about where he could go when he was released, the common dream of prisoners all over the galaxy. Bajor's supposed to be quite a beautiful world. He'd like to see it without the chains of occupation around it. "Sounds like fun," he replies. He could do worse than hang around with Nerys for a while. A lot worse. "I've thought about relocating to Bajor, maybe you can give me some advise on where to go?"

Kira is surprised, but pleasantly so. "I'll do that. It's good to see you again, Tom."

"Likewise. You take care of yourself."

Kira nods, takes a couple of steps back, then turns around and strides briskly into the crowd.

Well, at least one of his friends is still here. Maybe he could use her new contacts to get himself a job planetside. There's just one obstacle to clear first though. If he doesn't make himself useful on the Voyager, his release could well be revoked. And while his sentence wasn't harsh, his new plan for the future doesn't include spending the next two a half years behind bars.

Tom thoughtfully makes his way to the upper level and walks alongside the windows, noting as he does so that his two shadows have followed him up. As he nears the far end of the promenade, he catches a glimpse of the ship he'll be boarding tomorrow. The engineering hull is hidden, but the saucer section can be seen peeking out from behind the pylon like a curious child. Actually it's more like an arrowhead than a saucer. The sleek styling looks good. Someone on the design team must have had a head for aesthetics for once.

* * *

Samantha Wildman picks her way through the maze of corridors, looking for a place to eat after her long journey from Earth. For some reason though the gods are conspiring to hide all the cafes and bistros from her. It's starting to look like she'll find the Lost City of B'hala before she uncovers so much as a donut. Looking in the opposite direction as she turns a corner, she doesn't see the figure in front of her until she collides into it. "Oh I'm sorry, please excuse me," she apologises hurriedly as she stumbles backwards a little.

Tom scowls at first when he feels himself being shoved. He turns round, prepared to tell whoever it is where to go jump, until he sees exactly who his _assailant_ is. A pretty thing with shoulder length blonde hair tucked behind her ears at the sides, the cerulean stripe across her shoulders indicating either a scientific or medical profession in the Fleet. That's another thing he's missed while serving time - the women. The only female for miles had been the Governor, and she must have been at least eighty. "It's okay," he dismisses laconically, "no damage done."

Samantha takes in the appearance of the man. He's wearing a mostly all black ensemble with the exception of a white t-shirt underneath his jacket, marked by odd looking symbols. So he doesn't work here, unless he's off-duty of course. But maybe he lives on the station anyway? "I'm sorry to impose," she starts hesitantly, "but could you tell me where I might find somewhere to get a bite to eat? My stomach is starting to forget what food feels like inside it." The aforementioned stomach chooses that moment to growl for emphasis, Samantha reddening slightly at the sound. "As you probably just heard."

Tom smiles slightly at her quip. "Sure! You have to be on the lower promenade. There's a..." He pauses for a moment. "Tell you what, why don't I take you there?"

"Oh! Okay, thank you." There'd been a replicator on the runabout that brought her here, but she rarely got around to using it. Not wanting to look a fool in front of the Captain, especially on her very first senior posting, she'd memorised as many of the Voyager's specifications and operations as she could. The intensive studying resulted in her often forgetting to eat. "So, are you stationed here?" she asks, making small talk as she follows the man down to the lower level.

"No, just passing through. I'll be on another ship tomorrow," he answers after a beat, keeping the statement vague but technically true. Nothing like telling people you're an almost ex-con to make them run a mile in the opposite direction. Tom thinks about taking her back to Quark's, the greedy little runt owes him a favour or two. Looking at her though, he isn't so sure it's the right environment. "So what are you in the mood for? Fast or fancy?"

Samantha considers the question. Fast sounds good at this stage, the faster the better. But considering she'll be eating from the replicator again for the next two weeks, why not treat herself? "Hmm, fancy I think." She nods after a beat, affirming her decision.

"Fancy it is then." Tom looks briefly about the promenade, hoping the place that he's thinking of is still in business, then smiles as he sees the familiar sign of _Terin's_ set back slightly from the other establishments. "Just over here." Placing a light hand on her back, he guides her through an open doorway into a small, but classy looking restaurant. "You'll love this place," he says quietly so as to not disturb the other patrons. "They make the best authentic Bajoran cuisine this side of the planet."

A young, earnest looking Bajoran man approaches them and Tom immediately gets down to business. "Hi. Could you let Kel know that Tom Paris is here," he tells the waiter, "and... to bring out his finest makalra." The waiter seems a little unsure, but moves through another door, presumably into the kitchen. Tom turns back to his companion. "I hope you don't mind me ordering for you? Makalra's one of the best dishes on the menu."

"No, of course not. I'm sure it will be wonderful." It's actually a relief to have her meal chosen for her. Having no real clue about Bajoran cuisine, she'd have been ordering blind.

"A lot better than anything Quark could serve up at any rate," Tom agrees.

Samantha looks interested at his mention of the name. "I heard some of the crew here talking about a Quark's. They seemed to speak quite favourably of it."

Tom is dubious. "I'll admit the place is livelier than the last time I visited it, but I wouldn't exactly give it a five-star rating. Trying to deal with Quark is like fighting a war of attrition," he comments wryly. "Trust me, you're much better off here. Kel looks after his customers properly."

Samantha nods to herself at his explanation. _Wow, lucky escape then._

Tom glances around impatiently, but sees the waiter hurriedly returning to them. "This way, sir, ma'am." The waiter leads them to a private table in an alcove at the back of the restaurant. "Chef apologises for the delay, but the makalra will be ready soon."

"No hurry," Tom says. He stares after the Bajoran as he races off to take someone else's order. Kel must be training up someone new. Facing his companion again, Tom pulls out a chair for her to sit down.

"Thank you," Samantha tells him genuinely at the uncommonly polite act. She looks around the restaurant after she sits. Most of the tables are occupied, so there must be something in what he's told her.

"You're welcome, milady," Tom says with a smile on his face. He moves around the table to face her, then pauses. "You know, it seems a shame for you to dine alone. Makalra is always an experience best shared." If she wants to eat alone, Tom won't force the issue, but he can't help fishing. He could spend the rest of the evening playing Follow the Leader with his two shadows, but dinner with an attractive woman is a much more inviting prospect.

Samantha looks at him, her eyes widening slightly at the implication. "Are you asking to be my date?"

"Do you want this to be a date?" Tom answers without missing a beat. He looks into her eyes, hoping she'll say yes.

She chuckles, but then goes quiet when she sees he's deadly serious. "Well..." She blushes again under his gaze. "I, er..." She glances at other tables - most of which seem occupied by couples - and takes a deep breath. "Okay, why not," she answers quickly, a little unsure, but kind of flattered by the attention.

Tom smoothly sits down opposite her. "So, may I ask what a vision such as yourself might be named?"

She looks down self-consciously. "Samantha," she says, risking a look up at those blue eyes again. She notes the eloquent tone of his voice, actually finding it rather charming despite the slight cornball nature of the line.

"Samantha," Tom repeats approvingly. "A good name. I could see myself getting used to saying it."

She absently pushes a stray strand of hair back over her ear as her eyes cast downwards again. When exactly did she get this skittish around men? Alright, so she's never been the extrovert to start off with, but this is crazy. She feels like a teenager all over again. She realises - and not for the first time - exactly how much her last relationship took out of her. "So what might your name be?" she asks after a short pause.

"My name's pretty mundane by comparison. I'm a plain and simple Tom I'm afraid. There're quite a lot of us about."

"There's nothing plain about Tom," Samantha answers in all seriousness. "I like that name."

Tom raises his eyebrows slightly as if in surprise. "Really? Then perhaps we can find more things we like about each other before the night's out," he follows up, his voice sounding more intimate.

"Perhaps," she admits, her voice so quiet as to be almost inaudible, even over the muted ambiance of restaurant chatter.

* * *

Ezri Tigan sits alone, looking at the menu without really taking any of it in. Coming here was a bad idea, the latest in a long line of bad ideas. Seeing all the couples in the room talking intimately is only reinforcing how pathetic her life truly is. She can count the number of social engagements she's had this past year on one hand. And she's certain they were offered out of pity. Nothing she does matters, in any part of her life, socially or professionally. She knows it and more importantly everyone else knows it.

She thinks back to her experience in Commander Sisko's office just a few short days ago. His face had been impassive, but she could tell what he was thinking. "I've been going over your personnel file, Ensign. It appears that our station isn't proving to be the ideal environment for you to excel in," Sisko told her diplomatically. "And I've formed the opinion that you'd perhaps be more appreciated onboard a starship. What are your thoughts on this?"

_Her_ thoughts? She'd asked for permission to speak freely which was granted, Sisko steepling his fingers together as he studied her. "I'm getting the feeling that I've displeased you, sir. And if that's the case, I... I would like to know so that perhaps I can strive to improve myself and the job I'm doing here." Confessing her insecurities was a desperate pitch that probably wouldn't change a thing, but she had to make the attempt.

Sisko at least had delivered the bad news gently and didn't look happy at doing so. "Ensign, I'm sure that you could do well somewhere in the service, you have the intelligence, but unfortunately it's not going to be here." Rising from his seat, he'd moved around the desk to stand in front of her, officer to officer. "DS9 can be a foreboding place at the best of times, and with the recent developments regarding contact with the Dominion, it could get even more foreboding. I need to know that I can rely on the ability of every man and woman on this station if the situation should turn volatile. But in your case I don't know that I can."

Ezri had been crestfallen. She'd tried her best, but had suspected for some time that she was letting Doctor Bashir down, no matter how kind and patient he was with her. As it was she'd been reduced to delivering PADDs around the station. To have it all confirmed in no uncertain terms though.

"Believe me, Ensign, I know what it's like. First assignment after graduation, you're eager to please but a bundle of nerves, afraid that you'll do something wrong."

She could only nod.

"The trick is," he continued, "not to let that fear take over. Alright, you've made a few... mistakes. But learn from them. Don't let yourself be buried under the weight of every failure. Use that experience to become a better officer."

Gathering what was left of her dignity, Ezri swore to herself that she wouldn't lose her composure in front of the Commander, no matter what. She was going to leave this office with her head held high, not in a blubbering mess. "Sir, thank you for being so honest with me, sir."

Sisko looked at her for a long moment, then nodded. "There's a ship currently docked which is scheduled to leave soon on a search and retrieval mission. Its CMO has requested more personnel for his team when they return. If you're willing though, I can make the transfer arrangements right now. I think the mission would be good experience for you, plus it'll give you a chance to settle in."

Ezri acknowledged the logic, but couldn't help feeling discarded. Not that she showed it. "I'd appreciate that, sir."

The meeting was over. After the formalities had been dealt with, he extended a hand. "Good luck, Ensign."

She shook it weakly, but no platitude in the galaxy could have made her feel better at that moment, no matter how genuinely it may have been intended. "Thank you, sir. I'm sure I'll need it." For a moment, Sisko had looked as if he wanted to say something else, but then let her leave without further comment.

By the following evening, most of her belongings had been transferred to crew quarters aboard her new posting. Ezri had returned to her old room only once to collect a few personal trinkets. It looked so bare, as if no-one had ever lived there. Goodbyes were exchanged with her work colleagues, but it all seemed hollow, as if it didn't make the slightest difference to any of them. It probably didn't.

She looks around the restaurant at all the happy faces. She's never felt happy here. How can anyone stand to live here? Just looking at the ugly Cardassian architecture is enough to make her skin crawl. Why did she come to this place? She's lived off her replicator for a year, why is tonight so different?

Deep down inside herself, she knows why. Because tonight is her last night and for some reason she feels the need to be around people, to connect with the lives of everyone on this station in a way she couldn't before. She glances at the couple two tables over, the woman laughing at some joke the man must have made. She can observe, but she isn't connecting. She's just alone, as she's always been. Ezri almost cries out in frustration. She might as well not exist. Maybe she should leave before someone she knows walks in and reaches the same conclusion.

* * *

_I know I saw him come in here_, Zane thinks to himself as he searches the tables. He was going to leave this until later, but when he saw the Captain's new advisor walk into the restaurant, he couldn't resist. Eventually he spots his quarry sitting with a young blonde Ensign at a back table. _Good taste in women, as usual_, he muses as he reaches the table. "Mr Paris!"

Tom mentally curses the sudden interruption. The timing couldn't have been more rotten, Sam was just starting to warm up to him. Looking up, he notes the number of pips and stands, relieved that he didn't shoot his mouth off. "Good evening, Commander," he says cordially, making sure that his expression remains neutral.

"Please sit," he says, pulling out the spare chair and parking himself on it temporarily. Paris returns to his seat as requested. "My name is Zane Cavit. I'm going to be the Voyager's XO and I just wanted to introduce myself now before we get underway. It's likely to be a busy morning tomorrow, so I may not get the opportunity before we leave dock."

"Undoubtedly," Tom replies as he wonders what Cavit's intentions are. Well at least he's in friendly surroundings. If the guy causes a scene he'll be out on his ass, regardless of rank. Kel will make sure of that.

"I realise you're only going to be with us for a short time, but I hope that our association can be a productive one." Zane glances behind himself to make sure the table is indeed private. "Unofficially, Mr Paris, I'd like to shake your hand and say 'Nice right hook'," he continues a little more quietly. "Officially of course I must assert otherwise. I hope you have a pleasant evening." There's a slight approving smile on his face as he nods at them both and starts to take his leave.

_Huh? _Out of all the things Tom was expecting him to say, that wasn't one of them. Since his court-martial, the Fleeters he's crossed paths with have usually gone out of their way to stick the boot in. He'd dismissed Janeway as the exception to the rule, but the exception appears to have just doubled. What's going on?

The interruption proves to be somewhat of a mixed blessing for Samantha. She has to admit, the meal Tom ordered _is_ pretty good. And the man himself? He's said all the right things at all the right times, the perfect gentleman. She had just been slipping into a nice mental place when the Commander's arrival jerked her back to reality. As much as she's liking all this, it doesn't feel right. They've just met, it's too fast. As Cavit takes his leave, she quickly stands up before he can move too far away. "Sir?"

The XO stops and turns to face her. She nervously walks forward a couple of steps, extending her hand. "Samantha Wildman, sir, Chief Science. I've been assigned to the Voyager as well."

He thought he'd seen her before somewhere. "Good evening, Ensign," Zane says pleasantly, quickly shaking her hand, aware that some of the diners have stopped to stare now that they're in full view. "Please, don't let me interrupt your meal any further. Hopefully we'll be able to talk further tomorrow."

"Yes, sir!" Samantha says as the Commander walks away once more. It's only then that she notices everyone is looking at her. It feels like everyone anyway. Turning all known shades of red, she bolts back to her seat. "I'm sorry, I'm really really-"

"It's okay," Tom says, holding a hand up to stop her apologising. "I don't think anyone noticed."

Samantha groans to herself as she picks up her drink, wishing it was a tad stronger.

Ezri stares across the small alcove. She shouldn't be surprised, from what she's heard half the crew are out on the promenade tonight. But for two of them to be here? Not just in the same room, but almost within reaching distance? She swallows, then slowly rises to her feet. History may repeat itself anyway, but if she doesn't even try? Feeling her feet move almost of their own accord, she's by them in just a few steps.

"P-Pardon my intrusion," she interjects politely. "I couldn't help but overhear that you're going to be serving aboard the Voyager?" Ezri clasps her hands behind her back, trying not to look as nervous as she feels. "I've been posted there as well, I... I thought I'd come over and say hello." She berates herself though as soon as the words are out of her mouth. How desperate for company does she want to sound?

Tom almost swears out loud. Is this a conspiracy? Did someone summarily decide that the convict shouldn't get to have too much fun tonight? "Hello," he says glibly, fixing a pleasant but not too inviting expression on his face. _And goodbye_, he adds to himself.

Ezri glances at the man the Commander addressed as Mr Paris. He looks a little frustrated and she can't say she blames him. What is she doing? Two's company, three's a crowd. That's what they say isn't it? Some concepts are universal.

Samantha though smiles at the newcomer. "Really? It's good to meet you. I'm Samantha, I'm going to be Chief Science," she replies just a little too enthusiastically.

Ezri was about to slink away when the blonde woman spoke to her. "Oh I heard. That's great news, it really is. Um... I'm Ezri, medical staff." She holds out her hand which Samantha takes.

"Why don't you join us?" she suggests, gesturing to the spare seat the Commander vacated. "We should get to know each other, being crewmates."

"Are you sure?" Ezri asks, her voice wavering but full of hope.

With Sam's invitation out in the open, Tom finally sees any chance of a romantic evening go sailing up the swanee. "Sure! The more the merrier." Neither of them notice the resigned tone of his voice. _Well, there's always tomorrow_, he thinks, trying to look on the bright side though not completely succeeding. _Maybe I should've taken her to Quark's after all._


	3. Counting Down

In Quark's, a group of tired looking Fleet officers take their seats around a table as they start up their favourite topic of late, the mutual loathing of their immediate superior, Lieutenant Jara Karal. The Bajoran Ops Chief has been running the department ragged for days now. "I'm telling you, never again!" one of them argues sourly. "Jara is a pure bred fascist and if I never see another sensor relay again it'll be too soon."

"Tell me about it," a lone brunette woman replies in sympathy. "I've been helping Harry with the latter grid almost all day. Every time we finished it would come out at spec, but the Chief kept insisting we run it again... and again... and-"

"I think we get the picture, Merrill," the blonde man next to her interrupts.

A young Asian man - the aforementioned Harry - looks over to his companion and nods in agreement. "She's right though. There's thorough and there's overkill. The Badlands is notorious for its plasma storms and EM interference, so I don't know what good those detailed calibrations are going to be when the sensors are almost certain not to work properly anyway. If I ever become Chief of Operations," he announces to the table at large, "I promise you I won't be that meticulous." He takes a swig of his drink to toast the idea.

"Put that on your campaign manifesto and you've got my vote," the blonde declares as the rest chuckle.

"So do you think we'll actually find this Maquis ship?" Harry asks his new friends.

"I don't care," the original speaker pipes up. "I don't see why we're doing the spoonheads dirty work for them anyway."

"Be careful what you say, Mason. The Cardassians are our friends now," the officer sitting to his right with a slight French accent replies ironically.

"Friends?" Mason snorts. "Yeah, right. They might make the overtures, but we know all they're really planning is where in your back to stick the knife afterwards. Look at the treaty. If the spoonheads told our guys to jump, they'd have asked 'How high?' The Dip Corp might as well have fallen on their swords for all the good they did."

Merrill looks around the bar, noting all the Bajorans around them. "I suppose you won't get much argument here."

Harry doesn't like some of the comments he's hearing. As he looks around himself, he notices the Cardassian that lives on the station sitting with the local doctor. He'd briefly met the two when he arrived on DS9. He turns his attention back to the conversation at hand. "I personally don't trust the Cardassians any more then you do, Mason. But we're Starfleet officers, and as officers we're required to follow orders and aid whoever the Federation are allied with. I understand your feelings, just keep them in check while on the job, okay?" he told him.

"Ensign Kim, the consummate professional," the Frenchman smiles. "I would not be surprised if you did become Chief one day."

Harry suddenly looks embarrassed and takes another drink from his glass.

Meanwhile, a Vulcan woman eating a light salad turns to look at them. She can't help but hear snatches of conversation around her, but this one conversation in particular makes her ears prick up.

Her friend has heard at least part of it too, for his eyes narrow in on the officers, his expression shifting into a frown of concern. "You may want to advise your colleagues that talk like that causes people like the Constable to keep closer watch," he murmurs to her.

The Vulcan's eyes flick to him. "What do you mean?"

"Maquis!" He shrugs. "People around here are sensitive about them. Opinion is divided because while they are technically violating Federation law, they also embody the spirit of Bajoran resistance."

She now nods in understanding, her gaze shifting back over to the officers in question. "Do you believe they are sympathisers?"

He shrugs. "I couldn't say. I don't know them or how they came to their opinions."

With consideration, the Vulcan rises from her seat and takes the few steps required to move to the Asian officer's side. "Excuse me, may I have a word?"

Harry looks at the woman staring down at him, vaguely recalling her from the ship. He's momentarily annoyed at the interruption, but realises that's just the weariness affecting his mood. "I'll be back shortly," he tells his friends as he gets up and follows her over to a nearby table where a Bajoran is sitting, his expression unreadable. His focus returns to the Vulcan. "I don't believe we've officially met. Ensign Harry Kim," he says, extending his hand. "What can I do for you, Ensign...?"

Her eyes glance onto the hand for a moment, then return to the face of her fellow officer. "T'Prena," she replies, not accepting the hand. "This," she indicates her companion, "is Lieutenant Korman, Bajoran Militia."

Korman for his turn smiles kindly towards Harry, aware of how cold and inconsiderate the Vulcan mentality can appear to some. He thrusts his own hand forward, taking Harry's in a firm handshake. "Korman Dals, Engineering Corps," he says pleasantly. "You'll have to forgive the Ensign, Vulcans don't observe physical contact as a means of greeting the way other races do. Would you care to join us?"

Harry inwardly winces. He should have remembered that, Vulcans are the most repressed race he's ever encountered. But then xenosociology has never been his strongest subject. He smiles at Korman and sits down as T'Prena slides over to give him room. "Not a problem. I sometimes forget that not everyone hand-shakes. Nice to meet you both." He then looks from one to the other. "So is there something I can help you with?" he asks the pair, not at all sure why he's been asked over.

"Actually..." Korman clears his throat a bit and begins to talk more softly. "We wanted to give you fair warning about your conversation over there. Both Bajoran and Starfleet authorities tend to keep their eyes on people who harbour Maquis sympathies. Perhaps you are all just venting, but there are some places where even innocent opinions can be misconstrued."

Harry is somewhat taken aback by this. "That may be true, but everyone is entitled to those opinions as long as they don't interfere with orders or duty. I informed my friends of that fact. Trust me Lieutenant, Ensign," he says respectfully, "I have no intention of joining or helping the Maquis. They're criminals and I will obey Starfleet's orders regarding them."

"Completely valid points," T'Prena observes. She picks up a mug that must have been served during her short time away from the table.

"That's good to hear," Korman says, his smile warm. "Most any other places, it's not a big deal. I just didn't know if you were made aware of how sensitive the subject is here, that's all. Especially considering the number of Starfleet crews who use DS9 as a jumping point."

Back at the Fleeters' table, Mason narrows his eyes across the room. It looks like the Bajoran's been chewing Harry out over something and he doesn't like it one bit. "One moment, guys!" he says as he casually gets up from his chair and walks over. "What's up, Harry? This guy giving you a hard time? C'mon, the beer's getting warm." He motions for Harry to return to their table as he turns his head, giving the Bajoran a hard glare.

T'Prena looks up at Mason, then glances at Korman. The Bajoran for that matter looks surprised. "Not at all," he says honestly. "We were just discussing some local protocol that you may not have been briefed on."

Harry nods in agreement. "Everything's fine, Mason." His words have little effect on him though.

Mason folds his arms. "Well pray tell oh wise one. What have you got to tell us?"

At the Fleeters' table, Devereux - the officer with the French accent - gets up. While the rest of them have ordered synthehol, he knows for a fact that Mason has been on the real stuff for the last hour already, loosening the resulting tension of a particularly bad afternoon. Knowing Mason's rather antagonistic demeanor, especially with several pints behind him, he doesn't want to see his colleague take that tension out on an unlucky bystander. As Devereux strides across the floor, the people sitting nearby start to get nervous. The small crowd starting to gather at the Bajoran and Vulcan's table is looking ominous.

Korman leans back, his eyes narrowing as he recognizes the challenge. "I have quite a bit to tell, considering I'm a local and you're a visitor. Or perhaps you don't feel you have an obligation to acknowledge local customs?"

T'Prena's ears twitch at the subtle change in Korman's attitude. Her eyes scan the short distance between the crewman and Korman and she shifts in her seat. If either one initiates a physical confrontation, she'll be stuck right between them.

Mason steps forward and snorts. "Tell you what, wrinklenose. I'll start acknowledging your customs when you start showing us some goddamn respect. It's a well-known fact you lot have never wanted us here, so don't even dare get on your high horse. This is a Starfleet run station." He jabs a finger into Korman's chest. "You're the guest here."

Merrill looks pained as the Bajoran rises to his feet. She turns to her blonde companion sitting to her right. "Si?"

Simon shakes his head. "I'm not getting another mark on my record for him. If Mason wants to commit professional suicide, he's on his own." He stands up. "You coming?"

Merrill looks torn. Naturally nosy, she wants to see how this turns out, but if it gets too out of control? "Hang on a minute," she tells him, turning back round to see what she's missed.

Simon sighs, looking around. The two tables next to them have already cleared. Finally he shrugs as if absolving himself of any and all consequences.

Devereux has a hand on Mason's shoulder. "Let us not upset the locals," he quietly urges. "I have heard stories about the Security Chief here. He will not need much prompting to put us all in the cells." He dips his head slightly to the Bajoran. "My apologies, monsieur," he says to Korman. "My friend is a little the worse for drink."

Mason looks derisory at the Frenchman. "I'm fine! It's this guy that's the problem, trying to lecture us on our own goddamn station. He ought to mind his own business before he starts poking around in other people's." He then looks at the woman standing next to Korman. "And you're not much better either, Vulcan." By now, at least half the bar are listening to this exchange. Some have already moved well out of range, other more disreputable looking types waiting to pile in.

T'Prena's eyes widen at the sudden attack on herself. "I do not understand why-" she begins, but is cut off by her angry but well-meaning friend.

"I was under the impression," Korman says slowly, "that Starfleet had a policy of cooperation, not oppression, in the areas they administrate. Perhaps what the Maquis say about mainstream Starfleet _thugs_ isn't too far from the truth after all."

"Pointy-eared freak can't even speak for herself, eh?" Mason sneers as his gaze shifts back to the Bajoran. Korman takes T'Prena's arm and pushes her protectively out of the way.

"Lieutenant!" she exclaims, her eyes darting between the two as they square off. It's clear that she's way out of her element.

The slight redhead slouching at the bar finally turns her attention away from the Dabo Girl she's been flirting with. With a small sigh, she leaves both the girl and her virulent green cocktail behind for the moment, stumbling somewhat drunkenly across and draping her arms around the antagonist's neck. "Life's too short, Mase. These two ain't worth gettin' busted for. Why don't y' join me an' Marla?" She moves closer to his ear. "I think we might both get lucky," she whispers with a snigger.

Mason though shrugs her off. "Might be worth a night in the cooler to cut this one down to size," he mutters belligerently, continuing to glare at Korman.

"And miss tomorrow's launch?" Devereux cuts in. He glances sideways at the dishevelled woman who's lurched over, recognising Ensign Munro. She's usually okay, if a little too full-on for him.

Mason flexes and unflexes his fist by his side as he debates the pros and cons in his head. "Consider yourself lucky, wrinklenose," he says finally. He looks over to Harry who's been standing a little way back from the confrontation. "C'mon Harry, let's find another bar. This place has developed a smell."

Harry looks unsure, but accompanies Mason anyway, if only to keep an eye on him. The other ops crew move on with them, Devereux mouthing his apologies to Korman before bringing up the rear. Munro merely rolls her eyes and returns to the comely charms of her companion.

* * *

**Following morning.**

Engineering is a hive of activity as crewmen rush around, making sure all systems are ready for launch. "Alright people, we're at T-Minus ten minutes. Let's get this warp-core singing like a bird." Teresa Edison, the Chief Engineer, moves over to her power regulation display as several of her subordinates man adjoining stations. She's a chirpy Southern girl with short blonde hair.

"Such an attempt would be illogical, Commander," the voice of a young Vulcan not long out of the Academy pipes up. "Warp cores do not sing."

"It's just another expression, Vorik." Teresa puts him right without missing a beat.

"I think he knows that," Crewman Summers whispers to her, grinning as she quickly passes by.

_A Vulcan with a sense of humour? Stranger things have happened, but not many_, Teresa muses. As she taps her panel, she looks around for the science liaison. "T'Prena, what are the flow output readings for the gelpacks. I'm getting some uneven data here."

The officer in question had just walked in through the double-doors as the Chief spoke, a bag in one hand, PADD in the other. Without even needing to look at her station, she's able to tell Chief Edison the answer. "You are receiving uneven data, Lieutenant, because there are seven circuits that have not yet been brought online, which in turn effects other systems in a cascading, or pyramidical manner." As she arrives at the console that had been earlier set aside for her, T'Prena begins the process of transferring data. "I am currently uploading the baseline dormancy parameters for comparison to the master schematic. This will include an analysis of which systems are interdependant and which are independent. Unlike the traditional methods of control distributions, bioneural circuitry shuts down those segments that are not in use, creating a dynamic flow structure rather than a static structure."

"Dynamic, right right," Teresa mutters as she adjusts her thinking. "This is probably going to take a little getting used to, Ensign," she says louder, "so I'm going to be relying on you to keep me from blowing the ship up, okay?" She smiles mischievously. Like the Captain, she prefers to keep a relaxed working environment. Looking at the chronometer display, she watches it blink to 08:51.

* * *

As Harry steps off the turbolift and onto the bridge, he can't help but feel proud. It's his first time on the bridge of a starship. Not only that, but the Voyager is the most technically advanced ship in the fleet. Just to be here is a privilege. He tries to hide his smile as he makes his way over to one of the back ops stations, nodding at his fellow crewmembers as he passes. He sits down and logs into the station, accessing his assigned checklist. They're only minutes away from launching. He has to admit he's glad to leave Deep Space Nine far behind. Something about being on that station unnerves him. He remembers the almost-brawl at Quark's last night, thankful nothing further came of it.

Harry momentarily glances across to the Security Chief in conference with their civilian specialist. Everyone's been wondering about the tall, blonde man in the black leather jacket, but if anyone knows anything about him they aren't telling. He's a enigma that's for certain. An enigma Harry intends to decrypt as soon as he has the opportunity.

"Ensign Kim, if you'd like to stop staring around the bridge, perhaps you could perform a level one diagnostic on the latter sensor grid," comes the unpleasant tone of Lieutenant Jara.

Harry quickly turns around. Again? They went over that system yesterday what seemed like a million times. "Sir, with all due respect, we checked that system out-"

"Are you questioning my order, Ensign?" Jara interrupts, making him feel about an inch tall, if that.

"No, sir. Running diagnostic now, sir." Harry turns round and stabs at his console. They haven't even left and already he can tell it's going to be a long day.

At the other end of the Bridge, Janecea Stadi's hands rest on the helm console. She hates launch countdowns, they've always been one of the more frustrating parts of her work. Time seems to slow the closer the count gets to zero, the last minute like an eternity. As the time ticks over to 08:55, she rechecks engine status. Thrusters are fine, impulse power at optimum. Everything's ready to go, just five more minutes... five very long minutes. Glancing around, she catches Ensign Kim's eye and smiles at him as her empathic senses pick up some of his nervousness. The Bridge can be a daunting place to work on your very first assignment and butterflies are expected. Turning back to her console, the time ticks to 08:56. She sighs.

Samantha swings her seat slightly from side to side. Strictly speaking there isn't a great deal for her to do, but as the senior Science Officer she's at least making her presence known. She smiles to herself as she notices Stadi's sigh. The helmswoman must feel as nervous as she does. Surprisingly that makes her feel a little better, at least she's not alone in feeling like this. Turning the chair back to her station, she tries to look busy for appearance's sake.

08:57 and Captain Janeway tugs on her uniform as the turbolift doors open and she steps out onto the Bridge. "Captain on deck!" Zane calls upon spying her entry. Everyone who isn't already standing shoots upright and silence descends.

Kathryn stops dead in her tracks, slightly startled. "As you were," she says modestly, before someone can do themselves an injury from standing too straight. The crew resume their duties again. Looking over to her first officer, she sees the ghost of a smile on his face. Acknowledging him, she resumes to her intended destination, nodding at Jeff Rollins and giving both him and Tom a warm smile. "Good morning gentlemen." She glances at Tom. "Mr Paris, good to see you made it."

Tom for his part takes the hint, remembering protocol. "Just got aboard about quarter of an hour ago, Captain. I was asked if I could report to the Bridge for a tactical meeting." He pauses. "Kind of nice to be asked something for a change, rather than ordered. I'm assuming my _circumstances_ haven't been broadcast to the crew yet?"

"As far as I'm concerned it's no-one else's business," Kathryn tells him. "If you want to tell anyone yourself, that's your decision. Otherwise it's just between the both of us, my XO and Chief Rollins here."

Tom looks a little surprised. "Thanks," he tells her. He's not used to Fleeters being so accommodating with him. Hell, Janeway is positively friendly. Part of him is still suspicious that this is all some kind of ruse, but why spoil a good thing while it lasts?

Kathryn waves her hand in dismissal as if thanks are unnecessary. "Now, what have we got?" she says, looking at the tactical screen.

Jeff gives her a brief report. "Using the information that Gul Dukat so kindly forwarded us," he starts sarcastically, "we've pinpointed two or three possible headings from their last known position." He points at the far side of the screen. "Mr Paris thinks we should check out the Teracov Belt first. The Maquis have established a base there, surrounded by a asteroid field which offers some cover."

"Any additional defences?" Kathryn queries, examining the configuration of the belt in question, her eyes tracing the suggested path along the screen. Jeff glances to Tom, indicating that it's his turn.

"I haven't seen it myself, but I've heard that some of those asteroids are partly hollowed out with auto-sentries hidden inside." Tom lets that sink in before he adds a coda. "That could just be a story though, to make Starfleet and the Cardies think twice about paying a visit."

"Obviously they've never met me." Kathryn grins, liking nothing better than a challenge. "Sounds like a good first run for the Voyager, recommendation approved." She steps out from behind Tactical and down towards her chair, aware of the time. "Lieutenant Stadi, plot a course to the Badlands using the co-ordinates being relayed to you from Tactical."

"Aye Captain," Janecea says in a clipped tone, her fingers playing across the console as she begins to receive the data.

Kathryn sits in the Captain's chair. "Ops, open a channel to DS9."

"Channel open," Jara states after a short pause.

"This is the USS Voyager. We've enjoyed your hospitality, but I'm afraid we have places to be. Requesting permission to depart."

"Understood," Kira's voice comes over the comms. "You're already cleared for departure, Voyager."

"Thank you, Major. See you in two weeks."

"You'd better. Lieutenant Dax still can't believe she lost a game of Tongo to someone who wasn't Ferengi."

Kathryn can sense a smile on the Bajoran's face. They've got on quite well over the last couple of weeks. "Tell her she can have a rematch any time she likes. I could do with the spare latinum."

Kira chuckles. "She heard you, Captain. Good journey. Kira out."

"Docking clamps have been released, Captain," Janecea states.

"Engage thrusters and take us out, Lieutenant." Silently and smoothly, the Voyager glides away from Deep Space Nine.

Samantha feels a buzz of excitement as the stars move on the viewscreen. Looking quickly over to the Captain, she watches her standing there, gazing at the same starscape. Guess it doesn't matter what rank you are, you can't help but hold a similar fascination for the unknown that those stars represent. Letting her eyes wander, she spies her dinner partner from the night before, standing near Tactical. It's nice to see a familiar face, even if she hasn't known him a full day yet.

"Lieutenant Wildman!" the Commander's voice says suddenly, making her jump. "I'd like you to keep a sharp eye on your readouts and get the best possible record of our passage. The Voyager is going to make history as the most manoeuvrable ship ever built by Starfleet and we want its evaluation to be based on accurate detailed information." Zane deliberately keeps his voice down, feeling it unnecessary to deliver a harsh rebuke. After noticing her line of sight, it's not hard to guess what she was thinking about. Blushing madly, Samantha turns back to her work.

"Captain, we're clear of the Bajoran system," Janacea states.

"Proceed on programmed course. Engage at warp two," Kathryn orders.

"Aye, Captain." And with that, the Voyager leaps into warpspace, speeding towards the Badlands.

Tom steps down from Tactical as the stars turn into fast moving streaks of light. He feels a twinge of jealousy as he watches Stadi manipulate the helm controls. He'd give almost anything to be at the controls of a state-of-the-art ship like this. Unfortunately a panel of three admirals put paid to that chance almost four years ago. He glances back to his left, Sam beavering away. He'd caught the exchange between her and the Commander, allowing himself a private smile at seeing her blush. Last night may not have went as he intended, but he's still in with a chance there.

Kathryn turns around to take in the two men behind her. "Mr Paris, if you'd accompany Lieutenant Rollins and myself to my ready-room, we'd like to hear more about what we could find once we reach the Badlands."

"Aye, Captain," Tom answers respectfully. She's played pretty fair with him so far, more so than he's really expected. It's only right he gives her the same consideration.

Kathryn nods at Jeff and he follows them both to the Captain's ready-room, the shift alternate smoothly taking over his post. "You have the Bridge, Commander," Kathryn tells Zane before she disappears inside.


	4. Friends in Need

T'Prena appreciatively notes as she works that the Chief runs Main Engineering like a well maintained timepiece. A thought that is given further credence when the Chief announces their lunch break at the stroke of noon precisely.

"Break pattern B, folks. Make sure you chow down good, we've got a doozy of a time waitin' for us when we get back." About a dozen officers make their way towards the main doors as the crew who have been trickling back over the last five minutes take up the slack. "Try not to break 'em while I'm gone, Joe," Teresa jokes with Lieutenant Carey as he walks across the room and takes a PADD from her.

"I'm sure we can survive half an hour without accidentally hitting self-destruct," the Irishman tells her with a ghost of a smile. Their banter reveals an association going back further than this mission.

"I'm holding you to that," she tells him with a grin before following the others. Spying T'Prena a little further ahead, she hurries up to her. "Well Ensign, how's it going in there?"

T'Prena slows her stride to match that of her superior. "Like clockwork, Commander" she says formally after brief consideration.

"Good to know," Teresa says. "I was actually referring to you personally though. How's shipboard life shaping up for you so far? The Voyager's a big experiment in more ways than one for you isn't she. I was told you're using this mission to decide whether you'd prefer ground or space duty."

"I have not yet had sufficient experience to determine if it is, as such, preferable. I did find that sleeping with the engines in station-keeping mode was somewhat disturbing. However I suspect that is an environmental concern that shall become commonplace."

Teresa smiles. "You won't worry about it after a while," she confirms. "Personally, I find it reassuring. That slight hum lets me know that everything here is working completely as it should be." She spies Sonia up front and decides to leave T'Prena to it. "Well I'll catch up with you later. Hope you find your stay on the Voyager... fulfilling," she finishes, after searching for a suitably unemotional term. She gives the Vulcan another smile and then moves away, catching up to the department's resident joker.

* * *

When the scheduled lunch break arrives, Tom needs no prompting to go down to the mess-hall. As the doors part, he scans the room out of habit. A few eyes glance to him out of curiosity at this non-uniformed interloper, but mostly everyone is just content to eat their meals. It's not long before he sees Samantha sitting on her own by the window, looking out at the stars. Smiling slightly, he moves up behind her and taps her left shoulder, neatly stepping around her as he does so.

Samantha turns her head, furrowing her brow in puzzlement as she sees nobody except the people at the table behind her. Shrugging she turns back to her plate, then jumps as she sees someone suddenly standing in front of her.

"Greetings and salutations on this busy afternoon!" Tom says to her, tongue-in-cheek.

"God you scared me," she tells him, feeling her heart thudding in her chest.

"Scared you?" he says in mock surprise, sitting down. "Sounds like you should reduce your coffee intake for a while, milady."

If she wasn't so well-mannered, Samantha would have stuck her tongue out at him. "I just wasn't expecting you, dear boy," she replies, belatedly continuing their mock-formal rapport from the previous night.

Tom chuckles. She's catching on. "Well, I just figured after our impromptu date flew south for the winter, I should offer to make it up to you. How do you feel about trying again? Eight o'clock, Holodeck Two?"

Samantha falls silent. It isn't as if she didn't enjoy herself last night, but she can't help feeling apprehensive at the prospect of it just being the two of them again. To be honest she has no idea what Tom expects. He seems nice, but she wouldn't feel comfortable rushing into anything. Ezri had been a convenient safety-net last night, to stop things from getting too serious. She won't be around this time.

Tom sees the expression on her face and comes to the rapid conclusion that last night wasn't just a random case of nerves. She's obviously not a one-night-stand kind of woman, which is fair enough. "It doesn't have to be anything serious," he backtracks, trying to reassure her. "Just two new friends spending a little freetime together. Does that sound fair?"

Samantha looks back up at him. _Friends?_ She might not be ready to jump into a relationship, but friends she can do. Maybe she's been worried over nothing. "That sounds good, I'd like that," she replies, feeling more confident.

"Great, I'll see you there then," Tom says amiably. He's always had a soft spot for the quiet types, it's just been some time since he met one. His mind drifts back to last night for a moment as he considers that statement.

"Are you going to stay for lunch?" Samantha enquires.

Tom shakes his head as he rises from his seat. "Actually there's someone I need to see first. I'll take a rain-check on that though."

"Okay!" Sam says brightly. "See you at eight."

Tom smiles at her. "Verily, milady." With that, he dips a short bow and proceeds to exit the mess-hall. Striding over to the nearest computer wall panel, he taps on it for a few seconds, reads the information displayed, then clears the screen. Entering the turbolift at the end of the corridor, he requests deck five. It's a short journey and his destination on deck five isn't hard to find. As the doors swish apart though, the scene that confronts him is unexpected.

"Stop wasting both my time and yours, Ensign. I want that assignment finished otherwise you can forget about lunch entirely." A man with Lieutenant Commander's pips rails against the woman he's come down to see.

"It _is_ finished, sir," Ezri quavers slightly, handing over the PADD in her hand.

The senior officer barely looks at the data before throwing it to one side. "Sloppy! Get another PADD and do it again."

She looks startled. "Sir, it took all morning to do."

"And you can stop whining as well, Ensign, I won't have it in my sickbay. You're supposed to be a damn professional, act like it!" He twists his face with disdain. "If you're lucky you won't need to be kept back after shift-change, but only if this is done to my _complete_ satisfaction. Am I clear?"

Tom watches Ezri blink. She looks fleetingly akin to a puppy being kicked and pleading 'Why?' to its owner. The expression though is fast hidden behind a blank facade, the act of someone painfully aware that no quarter will be given. "Yes sir," she says. She grabs another PADD and quickly moves to the storage compartments while the CMO strides into his office. The only other person in the room doesn't even look up, seemingly focused on her own duties.

Tom enters Sickbay properly, the doors closing behind him. He schools his own features into neutrality before approaching the office. "Doctor Fitzgerald, I presume," he says after stepping inside.

The doctor keeps Tom waiting for a few moments before looking up from his console. "That's right. And you must be our new mission specialist, Mr...?"

"Paris," he states.

Fitzgerald's expression changes. "Any relation to Admiral Paris at Starfleet Command?"

Tom tilts his head slightly. "Yeah, son!"

The Doctor looks impressed and immediately adopts a more conciliatory manner. "A distinguished heritage. What can I do for you, Mr Paris?"

Tom merely glances questioningly out of the window at Ezri.

Fitzgerald looks uncomfortable as he follows his gaze. "Ensign Tigan. She's a new transfer I'm trying to break in. I filed a request back at DS9 for additional personnel and Commander Sisko saw fit to foist her on me. Perhaps I should have added 'competent' as a prefix. Her service record makes for painful reading." He looks back up at Tom and smiles briefly. "Don't worry though. I'll make sure she's kept away from the treatment beds during this mission, should they be needed. I'm just sorry you had to see that. Unfortunately it was necessary, otherwise I won't get any real work out of her."

Tom idly taps a finger against his leg. "Anyway, I was just wondering if you received my medical file," he tells the Doctor, having used the interlude to conjure up a plausible excuse for his presence. "I was a pretty late addition to the crew complement and I know how red tape works."

"The bane of my existence," he agrees. He looks back down to his console and taps at it. "Paris, Paris," he murmurs. "Yes, here it is." He quickly scans the overview for anything important, but nothing leaps out at him. "I'll need you to come in for a cursory examination of course."

"The bane of _our_ existence," Tom responds.

Fitzgerald smiles again, but it's thin this time. "I've had to perform almost a hundred this week, so believe me when I say it's no more fun on my side of the coin." He taps at the screen again for his scheduler. "How about tomorrow morning, start of alpha shift?"

"Fine by me. I expect your transfer will be able to handle it."

Fitzgerald absently shakes his head. "Myself or Crewman Bennett will be taking care of it."

"You want her to work for her pay, don't you?" Tom presses, hitting his buttons. "I can't see supply inventory being a two week job." _No matter how many times you tell her to do it, you stuck-up prick!_

The Doctor appears to considers that. "I suppose that's true. And it's not as if there's anything major on your file to check on." He glances at her through the window and narrows his eyes. "At the very least it'll stop her daydreaming for twenty minutes." He enters a note on the system. "Is there anything else you'd like to ask?"

"Yeah, I assume the Ensign is on break pattern B?"

He looks vaguely surprised. "Yes, but she hasn't finished her assignment."

"An assignment she's more likely to complete without mistakes if she isn't hungry. Working conditions, regulation five?" Tom adds nonchalantly. "As long as we're being professional."

Fitzgerald looks at him for a long moment, then lets out a sigh. "Alright, take her," he grumbles. "In fact, keep her, she won't be missed. Is there anything else?"

"That's it!"

Taking that as his cue, the Doctor rises from his seat and moves back to the main working area. "Ensign, you're on lunch!" he calls.

Ezri turns, her face letting slip another expression as she sees Tom behind her superior. "Sir?"

The Doctor scowls. "Get out of here, Tigan, before I change my mind."

Tom beckons her over with his eyes. She doesn't need another prompting. Placing her work down carefully, she hurries over to him.

Fitzgerald smiles ingratiatingly as they move to the entrance. "Well, it's been a pleasure to meet you, Mr Paris." He starts to extend his hand, but Tom has already turned his back on him, leaving him to awkwardly retract it as the doors shut again.

Ezri stares at Tom as they walk down the corridor. What just happened in there?

"You look like you've just been sold into Orion slavery," he quips with mild concern, trying to lighten her mood. "Don't panic, I didn't spring you from Stalag Sickbay for anything twisted."

Ezri hasn't heard the idiom before, but gets the gist of what Tom is telling her. Relaxing slightly, she looks up at him. "Why did you?"

"Well, firstly I wanted to apologise for last night."

Ezri is surprised. "Why do you need to apologise?" She can't recall him saying or doing anything he'd need to feel sorry for. He hadn't said much, Samantha had done most of the talking. But he was probably feeling like a third wheel. She knows that feeling well and it isn't fun.

Tom shrugs. "I wasn't as welcoming as I could've been."

She shakes her head. "I should be the one apologising. I b-barged in on your date. I'm so sorry, it's just... when I heard you were from here, I-I..."

Tom notices her speech pattern breaking up as she starts to become distressed. Either she's _really_ not used to talking to people, or someone did a number on her once upon a time. "It wasn't really a date to tell the truth," he admits, trying to calm her. "We'd only just met. Sam was looking for somewhere to eat, I showed her somewhere decent and ended up inviting myself. I thought it'd make for a better night than the one I was having up to that point. Just me trying to run before I can walk as usual." He smiles at her. "So there wasn't anything for you to barge in on."

Ezri briefly considers the idea that he's just trying to make her feel better, but why should he bother?

Tom's mind returns to what he'd told Sam in the mess hall. "Okay, you want to know the main reason why I came down to find you?" As they reach the turbolift, he hits the call button when the doors don't immediately part, then jams his hands in his jacket pockets as he leans against the wall.

Ezri hesitates, then nods.

"Do you know anyone on this ship?" he asks.

Ezri shakes her head.

The corner of his mouth upturns. "Neither do I. Everyone needs friends, Ezri. If you're interested in being mine, the position's open. I'm sure if you talk to Sam again, she'll say the same. We're not all like El Fuhrer back in Sickbay." The turbolift opens and they both enter. "Deck two," Tom says, then turns his attention back to Ezri who seems to be contemplating what he's told her.

"You don't really know me," she ventures.

"True. But then how does anyone get to know anyone? You seemed alright last night once you got settled. I'm sure we could get along." He leaves her to consider that as he slips a PADD out of his pocket and casually checks it out. "What was wrong with this anyway?"

Ezri looks confused as she glances at the item, so Tom flips it around, showing her the inventory data she'd spent the morning counting and collating. "How did you get that?" she asks in surprise.

"I borrowed it," he answers, offering no further explanation. The lift opens up again and they step out, Tom still scrolling through the information. "Looks like a fair bit of work's gone into this." As he suspected, it doesn't tally with the Doctor's claim of laziness.

She reddens with embarrassment. "It wasn't right though. I need to do a more thorough job, not make mistakes."

Tom eyes her curiously. "Tell me something. How do you confirm the data collected during a supply inventory?"

She looks away from him. What is he trying to prove? She just got it wrong again, can't he accept that?

"C'mon Ezri, you know this one."

She shrugs. "You... You check it against the last recorded inventory and correlate the differences with the computer's usage statistics."

"Attagirl! Now even if he memorised the quantity of every item in sickbay before you started, Fitzgerald didn't look at this long enough to determine anything from it. Unless he was evaluating your presentation, although that looks spot-on. So why do you think he's made you start again?"

Ezri is silent.

Tom decides to put her out of her misery, metaphorically speaking. "He isn't interested in the report, Ezri. All he's interested about is 'breaking you in'. He told me so in his office. Probably looking to turn you into a good little Starfleet automaton that won't show him up or go over his head. Don't let him. You know the procedure as much as anyone else. If he starts on you again for something you know you've done right, pull him up on it. If he threatens you, that makes it the Captain's business. She seems pretty fair. You can probably trust her to nip it in the bud."

She shakes her head. "I couldn't!"

"Just because someone's got more pips than you, it doesn't make them untouchable, Ezri. Trust me on this one." As they arrive at the mess-hall, Tom gestures to the doors with a smile. "After you."

Ezri hesitates, then walks inside, her mind awhirl.

* * *

**Mid afternoon.**

Kathryn watches swirling tendrils of plasma light up the viewscreen as they start cruising through the Badlands. They've had to make a few course corrections, but nothing major.

"Storm detected, adjusting heading mark one-eight-five," Janacea announces for the record.

"Destination ETA," Kathryn asks as she absently taps the arm of her chair with her nails.

"We should arrive at the Teracov Belt in thirty-seven minutes, Captain," Janacea replies, glancing at the relevant display.

"Well, this place doesn't seem so bad to me," Kathryn says quietly, turning slightly to look up at her advisor.

Tom stands just behind her with arms folded, his face serious. Unlike anyone else on this ship, he's flown through here before and has a healthy respect for the danger it poses. "You've heard what they say about tempting fate, right?" he casually asks as she catches his eye.

"Superstitious, Mr Paris?" she taunts with a smile. Before he can reply though, a beep sounds from Tactical station. Both sets of eyes move over to it. "Anything exciting, Lieutenant?" she asks.

Jeff looks at his readings and frowns. "The ship was just scanned by a coherent tetryon beam, Captain."

Kathryn looks quizzically at him as she straightens in her seat. "Can you identify its source?" she asks, her demeanor subtly shifting.

Jeff shakes his head. "There's nothing within range. The scan was very powerful though. It penetrated our shields like they weren't even there."

Kathryn stands and walks over to his station. "It had to have come from somewhere." After a moment of looking at the data, another beep sounds, but this time from the Conn.

"Captain, some kind of energy wave has just appeared directly in our path," Janacea reports.

"On screen," Kathryn orders as she lifts her eyes straight ahead. A moment later, a massive band of dazzling energy fills the screen. "Zoom out," she calls, squinting painfully at the light intensity.

"Captain... we're at one-to-one," Janacea states, in awe of the wave's size.

"Looks like fate couldn't resist the challenge," Tom quips ironically.

Kathryn shoots a look his way before responding. Stadi, take us out of collision range," she tells the officer as she quickly returns to her seat.

"Aye, Captain." The ship gently pitches down, moving out of the way. But Janacea looks worried. "The wave is altering course, it's adjusting to intercept. Ninety seconds to impact."

"Red alert!" Zane orders. The bridge immediately goes to battle-stations mode.

"That's no natural phenomenon." Kathryn's voice now takes on a hard edge. "Options, people."

Samantha double-checks her scans, wanting to make absolutely sure of this before she risks making a fool of herself. "It looks like a polarised magnetic variation. We might be able to disperse it with a graviton field pulse," she quickly tells everyone, twisting round in her seat.

"It sounds feasible enough, Captain," Zane tells her.

Kathryn nods in agreement. "Go ahead!"

Jara processes the command. "Initiating graviton pulse."

After a few moments, Zane looks up. "Negligible effect on the wave."

"Sixty seconds to impact," Janacea states.

"Will a higher field density make any impression?" Kathryn asks, although she has a feeling she already knows the answer.

Samantha takes a moment to give her it. "No, Captain."

"I could fire a spread of photon torpedoes," Jeff suggests. "The anti-matter disruption may clear it."

"Forty-five seconds," Janacea states.

"Do it!" Kathryn orders without hesitation. Their torpedo supply is limited, but she doesn't like to think what effect the wave will otherwise have on them. Jeff fires. On screen, several streaks rush towards the wave. The torpedoes explode impressively, but the wave continues in relentless fashion.

"Thirty seconds." Janacea's voice now has more than a touch of tension.

"Warp speed?" Jara calls from Ops.

"Why not, let's commit suicide before the wave even reaches us," Tom responds in derision as he steps over to the Captain. "Turn into the wave and ride it."

Kathryn whips her head round to face him. "We'll be crippled."

Tom looks pointedly at her. "Better crippled than destroyed," he tells her, his voice steely calm but his eyes projecting urgency. "Ride it out like a storm and pick up the pieces afterwards. It's all you can do."

Kathryn mind races for another solution, but she knows that Tom is right. Her first ship is going to be wrecked less than seven hours out of dock and there's not a damn thing she can do about it.

"Fifteen seconds."

Kathryn turns her hawklike gaze onto the helm. "Stadi, turn directly into the wave and hold position for as long as you can." She presses the control on the arm of her chair to activate shipwide communications. "All hands, brace for impact," she says loudly, as Janacea swings the ship around and counts down.

"Three... two.. one..."

It's as if the hand of God has struck the ship, carelessly flinging it aside. The Voyager lurches, then rocks and spins out of control. Sparks fly from consoles as the bridge fills with an incredible white light. As Stadi struggles with her controls, the Ops console Jara is gripping suddenly explodes.

In main engineering, Teresa loses her grip on the upper core railing and plunges headfirst onto the deck below. Sonia runs over, but is knocked off her feet. Scrambling back up, she feels the Chief's neck, then quickly taps her badge. "Summers to Sickbay, request emergency beamout of Commander Edison... Sickbay, can you hear me?"

The Bridge jerks dangerously forward, throwing Zane halfway across the floor. Then just as Janacea cancels the ship's spin, the helm console feeds back on her, long arcs of electricity surging up through her hands. She emits a short yelp before collapsing onto the helm, faint wisps of smoke coming from underneath her fried palms.

Then the wave _really_ starts to do its damage.


	5. After the Storm

Tom blinks his eyes. Darkness surrounds him, but not the familiar darkness of his New Zealand prison-cell. This is different. As his pupils widen, becoming accustomed to the lack of illumination, he begins to see shapes in front of him... human shapes. Sitting up quickly, Tom ignores the slight dizziness he feels from the movement and looks around himself, an ice chill running through him as he sees nothing but wreckage and bodies.

A few moments later and he remembers the Voyager. The energy wave had hit them with all the force of King Kong swatting a fly. Obviously the ship had survived in some form, but at what cost?

Consoles flicker feebly, providing the only light on the bridge. Even the emergency lighting has failed. That can't be good. Moving to the nearest body, he's alarmed by the sight of long, ruffled blonde hair. He quickly searches for a pulse, then lets out a breath of relief as he feels it throb. She's alive. "Hang in there, milady," he whispers to Sam before tapping his commbadge, reassured by the twinkle of the comm system. At least that's working.

"Paris to Sickbay," he says as he moves to the next body, feeling a knot twist in his stomach as he ascertains that the crewmember is dead. He moves to the next body. His pulse is thready and a large gash is dimly visible across his chest, probably a swipe from the jagged metal beam next to him. "Sickbay, please respond. We have casualties on the bridge requiring treatment." He briefly closes his eyes as he speaks, trying to force long buried memories back down.

He now spies the Captain, her shock of auburn hair looking like burning embers as he approaches her. Inwardly he's worried by the lack of response from the comm channel. How extensive are the casualties? He switches to a shipwide relay.

* * *

Ezri groans, one hand raising to touch her forehead and coming back sticky with blood. She blinks a few times and lies still, mentally trying to place exactly where she is and what has happened. What's the last thing she can remember? A red alert, the Captain's order to brace for impact, then...

Pushing herself into a sitting position, the first thing she sees clearly is a hand hanging over a nearby medical console, blood dripping slowly from the tips of its fingers and landing on the floor in wet splats. Her eyes follow the hand and arm to the... Throwing a hand to her mouth, she fights to keep from throwing up when she finds that there's no body attached to it.

Scrambling away, she collides with a large, upturned piece of metal plating behind her. A pair of Starfleet issue boots stick out from underneath it and she pales even more as she realises that she's found the missing body.

A distant sounding voice seizes her attention away from the grisly scene and Ezri realizes that the voice must have been what forced her to wake up.

"Tom Paris to anyone in the land of the living. Say something guys."

The voice is coming from her commbadge. Slowly raising a hand to it, she responds in about as confident a voice as she can muster at this stage. "T-Tom? What... what happened?"

It takes a moment before he answers and when he does, his voice is grim. "An energy wave the size of a small planet decided to pick a fight with us. Does that answer your question?"

Ezri pulls herself to her feet slowly, using a nearby console for support. "Yes!" she says, not that she likes the answer she's gotten. Looking around the room again, she stiffens as she sees Bennett nearby. Picking up a fallen tricorder, she makes her way over to the body. Dread though turns to relief as she discovers her colleague is mostly okay, just unconscious. Scanning the rest of the room, she notes the lack of other lifesigns. She can't remember anyone else being in sickbay during the red alert, but it was always possible another member of the crew entered after she lost consciousness herself.

The harsh sound of metal scraping against metal is heard over the line, then a pained sigh. "What's it like in Sickbay?"

Still ashen, she gives Tom the bad news. "It seems I'm the only functional person here."

"Wonderful!" Tom's voice is heard muttering, mostly to himself.

Ezri can only agree with the disheartening remark. "Crewman Bennett is out, Doctor Fitzgerald is..." The probable identity of the dismembered corpse hits her with a jolt. "How does the bridge look?" she asks, desperately expelling the image from her mind. "Is the Captain... Is she...?" She holds her breath, dreading the answer.

"Captain's vitals seem fine."

She breathes out as Tom gives her some good news at last.

"Don't celebrate just yet. I've counted five dead up here already and I'm only half done," he reports. "I guess you're..." Whatever he was about to say though seems to have been forgotten as she hears his footsteps become quicker. "Hang on!"

Ezri furrows her brow at his last comment. "Tom?"

What's going on?

As she stands waiting amidst the wreckage, a thought suddenly occurs to her. A new program was shown to her during orientation. Doctor Fitzgerald had been dismissive of it, but the program had intrigued her. Shouldn't it be active right now? "Computer," she says in a voice that is remarkably clear given how shaky she feels inside, "activate the EMH."

* * *

The redheaded officer who'd propped up the bar the previous night had been standing at the rear of the Bridge when the wave struck. Trying to find something to hang onto and failing dismally, she'd been thrown a good ten feet, hitting the railing behind the Captain's chair hard. As consciousness returns, she instinctively attempts to stand, but the numbing pain she gets for her trouble makes her aware that all is not okay. Fighting off the feelings of nausea and vertigo, she stares around the ruined Bridge. Only one upright figure is visible on the far side, a figure which is now approaching her.

Tom looks over the newly awake crewmember. The odd angle at which she's carrying her right arm suggests it's broken. "Looks like we're the only ones compus mentus at the minute, Ensign." Holding her unaffected arm, Tom helps her to her feet. "What's your name?"

She stares through him for a moment before her focus seems to return. "Xandra... Munro."

"Other than the arm, are you alright?" Tom asks. She seems to nod at him. "Alright, Xandra, check the bodies near the front, I haven't got to them yet. Don't move your right arm though. Trust me, you'll regret it." She probably wants to throw her guts up, but if she's managing to stagger about, she'll live. As he goes back to assessing the rest of the bridge crew's conditions, his ears pick up a faint sound. Turning his head, he tries to work out where it's coming from. It sounds like the steady tinkle of a communicator switching on and off. Either that or the biology lab's lost a few mice.

Xandra concentrates on the sound. Three short, three long, three short... SOS! It's as if someone's suddenly thrown a switch inside her head. She picks her way expertly across the deck, quickly pinpointing the origin of the sound. Reaching under the helm console, she uncovers Commander Cavit and seeing a bloody mess where his throat is supposed to be, immediately puts pressure on the wound. "Medic!"

Tom takes a moment to shut the eyes of the dead man in front of him, then runs over to his new triage partner.

"Tom, what's happening?"

Looking over the Commander, he responds to the urgency in the nurse's voice. "Ezri, can you see if the transporters are online? Commander Cavit has a throat wound, but I can't tell how serious it is in this light. We need to get him to Sickbay... him and everyone else up here." Looking around himself, Tom can't say he's confident of _anything_ working at the moment. Then again it's a miracle the ship is intact at all, so maybe God has another one up his sleeve for them. Telling Xandra to keep the pressure applied, he kneels down and looks for any other injuries on the XO.

"Understood," comes the one-word response.

Harry feels overwhelmed. Not even a day into his first assignment and he's already been threatened with death. His formerly slicked back hair now hangs loose and matted over his forehead as he stiffly rises. A slight trickle of blood runs down his face as he glances at his feebly flickering control panel. Long range sensors are down he notices, but short-range seem operational. He frowns. The navigational data is garbled, it must be.

Waiting for Ezri to check back in, Tom's head whirls round when he hears an alarm sound. What now? He sees someone step over to the the offending computer though and relaxes. The guy must have woken up while they were busy with Cavit.

Harry's eyes widen as he sees the warning on the engine operations panel. "Ensign Kim to Engineering!" he calls after quickly smacking his commbadge. "Is anybody there? Engineering, please respond!"

"I've tried that already," Tom calls over to him. "No-one's answering. Looking at the state of this place, I'll be surprised if there still is a Main Engineering."

Harry stares at him. If there's no-one left in Engineering, they're all going to be dead.

* * *

In the heart of the ship, a woman with short honey-blonde hair staggers across the floor, her throat raw from coughing due to the ionized air. She contorts her face in pain as she collapses against a console, only just managing to remain on her feet. Looking desperately up at the pulsing warp-core, her will falls a notch as she sees another seal break. Containment is failing. If she can't patch the field, they'll be lucky if Starfleet manage to find anything left of them larger than a thumbnail.

As she frustratedly thumps the unresponsive console, she hears a faint voice coming from it, fuzzy but just about audible. "Ensign Kim to Main Engineering... please respond." Stabbing at the console, she starts to cry.

* * *

Harry is about to give up when a burst of static erupts from the Bridge speakers, then a female voice. "Sum-" The word sticks in the speaker's throat as she starts coughing. "Summers here. Containment field at... thirty-five percent and falling." More coughing. "Cont-" Another breakup obliterates the rest of the sentence. "... help... please!"

Tom looks behind him as the plea echoes across the bridge before cutting out completely. Hell, another twenty percent drop and they're all up shit creek. "Do we have site-to-site," he calls over to Kim.

Harry looks down, rapidly punching buttons. "DAMNIT!" he shouts as the display shows him exactly what he didn't want to see.

"I... I can't activate our transporters," Ezri finally reports. "I've tried everything I can from here, but..."

Harry nods to himself, the voice just beating him to the punch. "Whoever she is, she's right. But the turbolifts are still operational for now."

_And there's our second miracle_, Tom muses.

Harry looks directly at him. "Get down there, Paris, I'll handle things here," he orders.

_You're assuming I know something about warp engineering_, Tom thinks at him as he bolts to the port turbolift without a word. _Lucky for you I do._

"Am I needed anywhere?" Ezri asks.

"Better ask the man in charge, Ezri," Tom tells her, aware that any licence he may have had to give orders has just expired. "I'm off to make sure our atoms aren't scattered all over the sector sometime in the next half hour. You can thank me later."

Harry watches the turbolift doors close, half hoping that a console down there blows up in his face. Using his lunch break productively, he'd started to investigate the background of their mysterious advisor. All important records on him were locked down by Security, but he knew they couldn't catch everything. Using a few _indirect_ sources, he'd managed to piece together the man's recent history and it made for some pretty unpleasant reading. Assault and bodily harm, arms smuggling, terrorism... no wonder the Captain considers him an authority on the Maquis. He doesn't trust Paris an inch, but there's no way he can do everything on his own. At least you can rely on a cockroach to look out for itself. That's the only thing reassuring Harry that the convict will do as he's been told.

Turning his head back to his console, Harry checks other ship's systems. They're running on emergency power which isn't good in itself. Life support is stable, but down below fifty percent. Only minor hull breaches on lower decks, but there's extensive internal damage. Weapons and defensive shields are both offline. Internal communications are still working, but short and long range are out. _I've got to do something_, he thinks to himself. Bringing up a power distribution display, he pulls everything he can from non-critical systems. They have to get those transporters operational if any seriously injured crew are to survive.

"Hello?" a woman's voice sounds, slicing through Harry's thoughts. He'd momentarily forgotten about the still open commline.

"Sorry to ignore you," Harry apologises as he works. "Who am I speaking to?"

"Ensign Tigan in Sickbay."

"I'm Ensign Kim, Operations. What's your status?"

A frustrated Ezri looks inside an open access panel and pokes a relay switch, flinching as an electrical spark jumps at her. Giving up, she drops her tool on the counter. She's no engineer, that's for certain. Isn't there anything she's good at? "Dismal. I'm the only conscious person down here and the EMH program won't activate. I'll do what I can, but... I don't know where to start. Please, can't you tell me anything?"

A small smile appears on Harry's face as his display finally decides to co-operate. "I've managed to get site-to-site transport operational. Stay where you are and I'll start sending the injured to you now."

"Ensign Kim!" Xandra calls out. "Commander Cavit is a priority. He can't be moved any other way and he's going to bleed out if there's much more delay." She looks at her left hand pressed against the wound in Cavit's throat, her skin red and sticky with his blood. She then glances down at her own useless right arm, white bone sickeningly protruding from her shattered forearm and blood running down the back of her hand. "You'll have to transport us both together because I can't let go."

Seeing her pinched face, Harry nods once and sets the controls. "Beaming two to you now, Sickbay."

"Acknowledged," Ezri says, her heart thudding in her chest after hearing everything that was said. Finally closing the commlink, she grabs her medical tricorder again and jogs across the floor as she hears her first patient begin to materialise. All she can do is try her best and pray that it's enough. If anyone dies because of her...

Back on the Bridge, Harry starts scanning for other volatile lifesigns, but is worried about how much the medic down there can handle. They need that EMH program online. His power source is independent from the rest of the ship, so that can't be the problem. Moving to another panel, Harry gives the activation sequence a cursory examination, but finds nothing amiss there either. It has to be the emitters. Looking around the silent Bridge, he makes a quick decision. Taking a moment to set a sequence for priority medical beamouts, he grabs a repair kit from its wall-mounting and heads for the turbolift.

* * *

Ensign Lance Jerico groans as he carefully stands up, his head starting to throb. What the hell had that bartender given him last night? As he orientates himself though, Lance notices he's not in his temporary quarters, but standing in a long corridor. A long, spinning corridor. Wha... who...? Then the surroundings filter to his brain. The Voyager, of course! He'd been running to get to his alert-station when the ship had turned into a massive pinball machine with him as the ball. Momentum had thrown him into a wall. Isn't momentum a wonderful thing?

Lance lets his vision settle, then starts moving slowly down the corridor, noting with growing discomfort the debris scattered around him and the fact that half the ceiling is missing, exposing the jeffries tube interiors and some loose circuitry. _What hit us?_ he wonders. "Jerico t' Jara," he says, lightly tapping his badge, figuring he ought to report this. All is silent though. "Ensign Jerico t' Lieutenant Jara," he repeats to no avail.

As he turns the corner, he realises just how deadly the alert had been. The lights down this section flicker on and off like a strobe and a body lies on the floor up ahead, near the turbolift doors. He sees a streak of crimson across the wall next to the body as he runs over to it. An initial look reveals nothing, however as he turns the crew member over, the strobing dimly illuminates a large gash on his head and a small pool of sticky, half-dried blood underneath. The crewman's eyes stare blankly up at him.

He stands up again, fully aware that this could have been his own fate for the sake of a few metres. He backs away from the body, then turns around and starts running down the opposite direction, worrying over just how many more bodies he'll find. "Jerico t' Lieutenant Jara," he tries again, but receives nothing. Is anyone even alive to report in to?

* * *

Tom hadn't failed to notice Summers' coughing fits over the commline, so he'd come prepared. A quick internal scan reveals high irritant levels of ionised gas. Sounds about right. After making sure the rebreather mask he picked up on the way is properly working, he parts the doors and runs in. The lone occupant jumps at the sound, looking behind herself. "The cavalry's arrived, Crewman," Tom's slightly muffled voice reassures her. He offers her a spare mask which she gratefully slaps onto her tear-stained face. They're only designed for short-term use, but neither of them are planning to stay any longer than they need to. "What's the core's status?" he asks.

Sonia's coughing dies down as the unpolluted oxygen fills her lungs. "The containment field is at twenty-eight percent, a number of the physical seals have broken and there's microfractures on the intermix chamber," she answers quickly, almost in a single breath.

Tom taps at the control panel in front of them, but it can't do much other than display a status report of impending doom. "We'll have to shut it down."

"I tried, it won't respond," Sonia says desperately.

"Ever performed a manual shutdown?" he asks. She stares blankly at him. "I'll take that as a no. Follow me."

* * *

Lance moves through corridors, bleakly noting that the situation is similar in all of them. The few bodies that he passes are clearly dead. One or two may still be breathing, but he doesn't stop to tell for sure. He wouldn't be able to do a damn thing for them in any case. By now his mind has come up with several scenarios for this, ranging from the acceptably plausible to the nightmarishly absurd.

Rushing around another T-junction, he collides into a moving figure. Jumping back, Lance is ready to lash out at the enemy his mind is conjuring up. His body relaxes though as he sees the familiar mustard stripe of a colleague. "Y' almost gave me a heart-attack," he tells her.

Leslie Rodriguez finds the prospect of the only conscious person she's met having a heart-attack upon meeting her amusing for some reason. "Top of the morning to you, sir!" she giggles, attempting a salute. The effort makes her lose balance though and she topples forward. Lance breaks her fall and holds her upright, eyeing her strangely. "Crewman Leslie Rodriguez reporting for duty," she announces. "Just point me in the right direction and I'll blow 'em to smithereens." She giggles again.

_Them? Who're them?_ "What happ'ned, were we attacked?" Lance hopes he can get some sense out of her.

Leslie furrows her brow for a moment, concentrating. "Attacked..." She looks around at the debris. "Yeah, I'd say we've been attacked alright," she deadpans. "I remember one strike... I think. But there could have been more after I passed out." She shakes her head to clear the cobwebs, but winces as a spike of pain drives through it. "Ooo, bad juju." She leans her head on him. "Is it nap time yet?"

"Not yet," he tells her, thinking it's probably not a good idea for someone in her obvious condition to sleep. "I'm makin' ma way t' the Bridge now. I think anyone on their feet will be headin' there or Main Engineerin' t' regroup. Y' c'n come with me." He looks at her dubiously. "C'n y' walk on yer own?"

Leslie snorts, pressing her fingers against her temples. "Of course I can walk on my own." To prove her point she pushes off of him and takes an unsteady step forward. "Or I could if the corridor would stop spinning for two seconds," she grumbles. Lance holds out his arm. Pulling a face, Leslie reluctantly takes the offered support.

* * *

"Pleeeeeeeeeeze staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate the nature of the meeeeeeedddddddddical emergency..." The hologram's voice is oddly low and stretched as he flickers into existence, then vanishes again.

"C'mon!" Harry urges as he makes another adjustment. The hologram appears again, but his image jitters out of focus. A strange look appears on his face as his mouth moves, but no sound comes out. Harry deactivates him again and glares at the uncooperative emitter. Bennett has been brought round in the meantime, but it's obvious that neither of the medics are anything approaching a fully qualified doctor. If he can't get this small mounted device to work...

Harry pushes away the morbid thought and concentrates on tightening the visual spectrum bandwidth.

"Please state the nature of the medical emergency," the hologram announces as he appears yet again. His face brightens at having properly working vocal subroutines again.

"That should be it," Harry calls down.

"We have multiple percussive injuries, sharp force and blunt force traumas," a frazzled Ezri replies to the question, relieved at having an expert on hand at last. The amount of casualties they're receiving are getting out of hand.

"Status of ship's current medical personnel?" the EMH asks he picks up a medical tricorder.

"Myself and Crewman Bennett are both nurses. Doctor Fitzgerald is dead." Ezri is calling on every last bit of her training to keep it together as she works on stabilising the patient lying in front of her.

"Very well," he replies, his program accessing the admission roster and sorting out patients into priority order. He blinks out and reappears on the opposite side of the room as an ECG starts to whine.

Harry watches the hologram go about his work. He still looks slightly blurry to him, but at least the program's finally up and running. That last emitter will eventually need replaced though. That's assuming Voyager doesn't explode from the warp-core. He sent Paris down there, why hasn't he reported in? Accessing an engineering display, he's alarmed to see that there's only six minutes left until the core goes critical.

There's nothing else he can do here. Harry quickly gathers his kit and leaves sickbay, running for the nearest turbolift. He barks his destination to the computer as he enters. After a juddering start, the lift starts its descent. If they survive, he's going to kill Paris.

* * *

Sonia notices another prone body fading out in a transporter beam as she works. Tom had explained earlier that the bioscan program was probably running, automatically moving people to sickbay according to how urgently they needed treatment. It's a little reassuring, but not much as several of her friends have already been spirited away and she can't afford to be distracted by thoughts of what they might be going through.

Tom looks across at Sonia as he crouches in front of the open panel. To her credit she's managed to do everything he's asked of her, despite her trepidation and lack of experience with this procedure. Having bypassed the computer's lockout, it comes down to this final action. His hand rests on the grip of a cylindrical lock built into the base of the core. "Ready?" he asks. Sonia nods once. "Alright, countdown from three... two... one... turn!" They both firmly rotate their locks counter-clockwire and pull them up. "And slide!" Catch levers are pulled down, the procedure synchronous.

The moment the core is disconnected, the massive column of pulsing light in front of them suddenly winks out, plunging them into semi-darkness. Tom glances at the frozen countdown to his right, then smiles at Sonia. "Ninety seconds remaining. Wasn't even exciting."

Sonia lets out a breath and starts to laugh in a mixture of amusement and pure unadulterated relief. "It worked!"

Tom shrugs and makes his way to the core display. "Sure did," he confirms. "Give yourself a pat on the back, Sonia. I couldn't have done it without you."

The blast doors have barely parted when Harry races in at top speed. He slows to a stop though as he notices the darkness around him. _What the hell? _The large two-storey room is illuminated only by a few dim emergency lights and the blink of broken computer consoles. Glancing towards the core, he sees two people standing by the guard-rail with some kind of apparatus over their faces. "Status report!" he calls. The masked figure on the left turns to face him, his attire marking him out as Paris.

Tom gestures for Sonia to follow him as he moves over to the Ops man. "You'd better get yourself a mask. Engineering's flooded with ionised gas, you'll start feeling it in about twenty seconds. As for our status?" He briefly turns his head back towards the inactive core. "Looks like we're all gonna live to see another day after all. Barring any more cosmic anomalies dropping by for a visit." He pauses as the guy digests the information. "Ten seconds," he mentions casually as he deduces that the officer is probably feeling a tickling in his throat by now.

Harry stares at Paris as he starts to realise he isn't needed here after all. As he starts to choke, Tom rolls his eyes and grabs Harry's arm, half pulling, half dragging him out of Engineering with Sonia following alongside. When the doors slide shut, they both take their rebreathers off.

"Handy survival tip, Ensign Kim," Tom tells the spluttering officer. "Next time someone tells you the room you're standing in is filled with gas, the answer _isn't_ to stand there looking like a dachshund on dope."

Harry clears his throat of the irritant, only to stare another one in the face. "Don't drag me around like I'm some sort of diagnostic tool. I'm a Starfleet officer, I can handle myself."

Tom looks disinterested at the animated rebuke. "Whatever you say," he drawls.

_No wonder the man ended up where he was with that attitude_, Harry muses. "Now I ask again, what's the core's status? And how long will it be before this gas dissipates?"

Tom looks derisory at him. He'd hate to have a guy this oblivious guarding his back in a fight. "If you didn't pay attention the first time, I'm not saying it again."

Sonia, looking from one man to the other, decides to stop the macho posturing before someone gets hurts. "The warpcore has been completely shutdown, sir" she starts hurriedly. "It will be safe to start repairs on as soon as Main Engineering is operational again. Environmental controls are offline. We'll need a manual clean-up crew to take care of the gas."

_At last, a straight answer to a straight question_. Harry nods, considering the next step from here.

"You've done all you can here, Sonia. Best get down to Sickbay," Tom tells her, knowing that she probably has friends being operated on right now. Engineers tend to be a close-knit bunch.

"Belay that, Crewman," Harry warns her. "Mr Paris here isn't a member of this crew and as such has no authority to give orders. I want you to round-up a team that can take care of the clean-up operation."

Tom glares at him. "She just helped me save the ship, so how about you cut her a little slack." Now this is the kind of officer he's more used to dealing with.

Sonia looks at both men, then lowers her head in compliance. "Yes sir, at once." She hurries down the corridor to the nearest turbolift.

Tom starts to clap slowly. "Very sensitive of you, Ensign. You'll make a fine Captain one of these days." His voice drips with sarcasm.

Harry outwardly ignores the bait, but inside his ire rises. "Paris, you should be reporting to Sickbay yourself. You have experience that could help the medical crew, correct?"

"Where did you read that?" Tom asks, neither confirming nor denying it. "Been conducting a little investigation into Thomas Paris on the quiet have you?"

"I wouldn't waste my time. You know you should consider yourself lucky you're even on this ship. If it were my decision, I would have let you rot in prison." Harry pauses for breath. "We're losing a lot of good people today and frankly they all deserve to be alive more then you do."

Of course the fact that the Ensign even knows that Tom spent time in prison is proof that despite his protests, he'd stuck his nose in where it wasn't wanted. "Maybe, maybe not," Tom casually comments, unaffected by the vehemence. He's heard a lot worse directed at him. "But then I'm not exactly in a position to decide who lives and who dies, unless you've somehow mistaken me for a Q." He smirks. "Y'know, I think I will swing by Sickbay. Unlike some people who seem happy to stand around corridors arguing the toss, I'm actually interested in how a few people are doing." With that parting shot, Tom steps around the angry Ensign and walks away.


	6. Picking Up the Pieces

Lance sighs as he leans against the wall of a turbolift, slowly crawling its way up to the Bridge. The woman he'd literally bumped into is proving to be a handful. After she waved her phaser around pretending to zap imaginary foes, he'd took the weapon away from her, only for the disgruntled Security officer to kick him in the shins and retrieve the dropped phaser as he clutched his leg.

"So tell me young 'un," Leslie asks, looking across at him, "just how the hell are we gonna do whatever we're gonna do with me being loopier then a fruitbat?"

"Lord only knows!" Lance says under his breath.

Blinking, Leslie frowns. "Where did that phrase come from anyway? Why would a fruitbat be loopy?"

_Maybe it met you. _"One t' ask our Science Officer I'm sure," Lance tells her. The doors open. _The Bridge, finally_, he thinks, walking out into... a big open space full of wreckage. "Jeezus H..."

Leslie stumbles out to join him, taking in the ruined command centre and whistling. "I don't think this was the result of your average photon torpedo!"

"Yer not kiddin'," Lance replies softly. After glancing at the woman to make sure she's able to stand on her own, he moves forward to the floor in front of the Captain's chair. "Capt'n? Capt'n Janeway, c'n y' hear me?" Her pulse is strong, that's good, but she seems to be out-cold. Feeling her head, he empathises as his fingers move over a lump the size of a snooker ball. "Capt'n!" he says again, gently shaking her as he vaguely hears his companion trying to get through to someone on the comm system.

Leslie takes off her badge and knocks it against the wall several times before holding it up to her mouth. "HELLO? IS THERE ANYONE LEFT, OR IS IT JUST ME AND IRISH?" she yells. As silence greets her, she drops the defective badge and sinks to the floor.

The shouting gets Lance's attention. Turning around, he sees the woman curl up on the top step, her wild hair falling down across her face. He can't blame her he supposes, the situation does look pretty dire.

"This isn't what I signed up for." She whips her head up, her eyes blazing through long golden strands. "I'M supposed to be the one who kicks the living crap out of the bad guys, NOT the other way around! THIS IS THE TYPE OF THING I'M SUPPOSED TO BLOODY PREVENT!"

"HEY!" Lance calls to her loudly. "Calm down, lass, I don' need y' goin' all hysterical on me." He pauses as she glares at him. "Look around. D' y' really think y' could've stopped this on yer own?" She scowls, but doesn't shout again.

"Not so loud!" Kathryn whispers, her head feeling like someone's detonated a torpedo inside it.

Lance turns back to see the Captain moving slowly. "Capt'n, yer awake!" Things are looking up at last.

Kathryn narrows her eyes and attempts to look out of them, but all she can make out are vague shapes against the darkness. "Evidently!" She blinks, attempting to clear her sight. It's dark in here, wherever she is... Then she stiffens as her memory come flooding back. "Report!" She quickly pulls herself up from the floor, but the resulting headrush tells her that wasn't her best idea.

"Easy, Capt'n," Lance tells her as she sinks back to a sitting position. "That's quite a bump y' got yerself there." He thinks for a moment, then holds his hand up. "How many fingers d' y' see?"

Kathryn knows the routine and stares carefully. Her pupils are starting to adjust to the lack of light. "Four," she tells him confidently.

Lance lowers the three fingers he'd been showing. "Close enough!" She has mild concussion, but he knows that in their predicament they can't have the Captain of the ship stuck in Sickbay, assuming there still is a Sickbay. Now if she'd said six...

Kathryn again tries to rise, a little more successfully this time. Leaning against her lopsided chair, she looks at the blurry crewman in front of her. "How bad is it?" she asks him earnestly.

"Well..." Lance pauses, not sure how much he should hit her with.

"Tell me!" Kathryn demands in a more authoritative tone.

Lance shrugs. "The bridge looks like a jigsaw no-one's finished yet. I haven't bin below deck three yet, but the only crewm'n I've even seen up an' about is... erm..." He turns quickly to his companion. "Who are y' again?"

Leslie snorts. "Made a strong impression on you, huh!" She clambers over, flicking her annoyingly errant hair out of her face before coming to a stop in front of the Captain. "Crewman Leslie Rodriguez, Security division" she introduces herself. "Slightly concussed and a bit more than confused as to what's going on, sir. If it's not out of place to ask... what the hell happened?"

Kathryn looks at the clearing image of a blonde. _A forthright speaker. Sounds like one of Jeff's_. "An unknown energy composed phenomena of massive proportions intercepted us, Ms Rodriguez. Needless to say we haven't come out of it too well."

"In oth'r words, we were fly-swatted," Lance says to Leslie as an aside.

Kathryn turns her head to him. "And you are?"

Lance looks momentarily startled. "Er, Lance Jerico, Capt'n. Ensign Lance Jerico," he replies, adding his rank quickly.

"Well Ensign Jerico, I need a damage report from Ops station and casualty reports from Sickbay, _if_ you can manage that." She doesn't mean to make the order as sharp as it sounds, but she has a splitting headache and isn't feeling very patient right now.

Lance nods, no reaction to the tone evident. "Aye, Capt'n!" He hurries up to the station, grimacing as he notices the sliced-up body of an officer half lying against a back panel.

"Can you check the rest of the Bridge crew?" Kathryn asks Leslie, making the effort to sound less antagonistic. "Find out who's alive and who's dead." Tom had told her that riding the wave would probably save the ship and it looks like he was right. But how many of its crew have shared that good fortune? Leslie acknowledges her and shuffles off towards the helm.

"Chief Jara c'n be yer first name in the deceased column," Lance announces as he looks at the main console. Automated damage reports are already called up. Furrowing his brow slightly, he presses a few buttons.

_The first person to die under my command_, Kathryn thinks grimly. She's been a Captain for less than a month, what does that say about her leadership? She tells herself there's no way she could have saved him, but...

"Looks like someone got here b'fore me, Capt'n," Lance reports. "They rerouted power reserves, managed t' get site-t'-site transport back up an' set up a shipwide bio-readin' t' ID emergency cases."

Kathryn slowly stands up, pushing away the impulse to be sick as her vision starts to spin again. Closing her eyes for a moment, she lets her head settle, then opens them, exhaling with shock as the Bridge finally comes into proper focus. Knowing that the Bridge is supposed to be one of the most protected areas of every starship, she's almost afraid to imagine what state the other decks are in.

* * *

Xandra's eyes snap open, her eyes scanning her surroundings madly. She visibly relaxes within seconds though, sighing as she sits up on one of the narrow general-use recovery beds set at the far side of the room. Her sleep, fitful as it was, had been plagued with nightmares. She was trying to stop Cavit from bleeding out again and this time she wasn't successful. The blood flowed through her fingers and over her hands, feeding ever widening crimson pools which ran everywhere, drenching her uniform and filling the room with a thick coppery smell.

Feeling unsettled by the vivid imagery, she shuts her eyes, taking a few moments to breathe deeply and centre herself. Opening them again, she looks around Sickbay properly. The EMH flits from patient to patient, diagnosing and treating patients with programmed efficiency. In contrast, the rest of the official medical team - all two of them - look ready to drop. Glancing down, she tentatively flexes her arm. It's a little sore, but obviously repaired. Good! She has no intention of wasting her time lying in Sickbay while the ship is still in danger, but knows from experience how overcautious medical staff can be. If she can make a break for it while everyone is occupied?

"BENNETT!" Ezri calls out. The other nurse sees her struggling with an incoherent patient and drops what she's doing, running over to help.

Xandra sees her chance. Swinging her legs off the biobed, she drops down and starts crossing the floor, feeling a little light-headed but otherwise fine.

"And where do you think you're going?" The hologram appears in front of her with surprising speed.

"Can't you cough or something before popping-up in front of someone like that? I'm going back on duty, consider me discharged." She takes another step forward, but the Doctor's hand stops her. Xandra stares daggers at him as the hologram drops his eyes to bring up a condition report.

He lets out a short "Hmm," as he considers the variables. "Your arm will be tender for a few days," he announces suddenly, "however the bone has set." He looks at the Ensign. "You may leave. Bed space is in short supply and we have more serious patients that need them." The hologram then vanishes and reappears next to an injured crewman across the room.

Xandra blinks at the abrupt dismissal, but isn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. She quickly leaves Sickbay, almost colliding into someone on their way in as the doors parts. "Sorry," she murmurs before making her way to the turbolift.

Tom barely notices the crewmember who passes him as he enters. His eyes travel around, immediately taking in the barely controlled chaos. The large room is fuller than it has any right to be, more patients requiring treatment than there are biobeds to treat them on. Some lie on stretchers strategically placed around the perimeter. Several officers hurry around now, obviously drafted in, although it's hard to pick out the actual medical personnel amongst them. It's a troubling, but unfortunately familiar sight.

Turning to the panel by the door, he taps up the admissions roster and runs his finger down the list. It looks like biobed five is his destination, although there is scant information on the patient's condition. Pushing through the crowd, he's soon at her side. Looking at her chart though, he freezes for a moment when the words 'sub-cranial hematoma' leap out at him. Looking around, he finally picks out a flash of blue rushing past like a miniature tornado.

On some level, Ezri is aware that she has a headache, but she's much too busy to even think of treating herself. She can feel her self-control slipping though as she rushes from one job to the next, treating a steady stream of patients on a neverending list. The hologram has been particularly merciless in his demands, barking orders and treatments at her so fast, she can barely comprehend them. She's trying, but there's only so much she can physically do all at the same time. So when she feels the hand on her arm, jerking her to a stop, she just snaps. "WHAT? WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?" she yells, whirling round, expecting to see the bald-headed figure of her latest tormenter. It takes a second before she realises who is really standing there.

"Easy!" Tom replies, letting go and holding up his hands for a moment, before letting them drop.

Ezri runs a hand through matted hair and forces herself to breathe. In... out... in... out. The tension lifts, if only slightly. "I'm sorry!" she tells Tom meekly. "I'm just... It's all..." She struggles to find the words she wants to say.

"It's alright, forget about it," Tom dismisses. He gives her a few moments to collect herself. The young woman has a thick sheen of perspiration on her brow and numerous dark scuffs on her crumpled uniform which can only have come from blood. He turns to look at Samantha again, a measure of concern evident on his face. "How is she?" he asks finally.

Ezri has to remind herself with a look at the display chart. There have been so many people in and out, their injuries are just one long blur to her. "The EMH got to her just in time," she tells Tom as she remembers the procedure she'd assisted on. "She'll... she'll live."

She'll live. Not 'She'll be fine' or any number of variations on the theme. The implication hangs in the air. "But?"

Ezri opens her mouth, then closes it again, clearly unsure.

"You don't need to sugarcoat it," he tells her, keeping his voice even.

Ezri looks pained. "It's... possible she may have brain damage. We won't be able to tell until she wakes though... if she wakes."

Tom momentarily looks stricken before he turns away to look back at Samantha. He reaches across to brush a stray lock of hair away from her face.

"Ensign Tigan, where are those recalibrations?" the Doctor's voice orders, cutting through the chaos.

"I've got to-" Ezri starts.

"Go!" Tom smoothly finishes for her, allowing the nurse to run off and placate the relentless hologram. Looking at the comatose Samantha, he knows he can't stay here. What can he do for her? It's just a matter of wait and see now. "I'll stop by and see you later," Tom whispers, doubting that she's heard, but hoping anyway. With an unreadable expression, he turns and moves back to the wall, bringing up the roster once again. Checking off in his mind the patients who are already being worked on, he registers himself on the system as active personnel and heads to the next patient.

* * *

**Two hours later.**

Kathryn examines the ship's status reports streaming on the screen beside her. At first they were overwhelming, but with the help of some of her junior officers, she finally feels like they're turning a corner. The flow of casualties into sickbay has almost stopped and repair teams are being routed to key systems as personnel become available. Looking up from the headache inducing text, she glances at the now garbled viewscreen. Jerico had managed to get it operational about five minutes ago, although he might as well have not bothered for all the good it's doing. They're still unable to scan beyond the confines of the ship. Anything could be out there.

The turbolift doors part and a familiar figure strides off. Kathryn turns to face the newcomer and her eyes light up. "Jeff, thank God!" She rises from her chair and approaches him. "How are you?"

The Security Chief smiles at her informal slip. "It takes more than an oversized dynamo to put me out of action, Captain."

Kathryn takes him to one side. "Is there any word on the rest of the senior staff yet?" she asks him quietly.

"I saw Commander Cavit before I left sickbay. His carotid artery had almost been ripped open. Apparently someone up here kept him alive long enough to be beamed down, then Ensign Tigan managed to stabilise him before the EMH came online and operated."

Kathryn sighs in disbelief. "I keep thinking that this can't be happening, that's it's a nightmare. But even nightmares aren't this bad." Jeff can only nod ruefully in agreement. "What about Tess?" she asks.

Unfortunately Jeff isn't in a position to put her mind at ease. "Sorry Kathryn, I couldn't find her. It's still pretty hectic down there."

She looks at the viewscreen once more, then to the turbolift. "I think it's time I found out what's going on first-hand," she decides. "Can you and Jerico keep coordinating things from here?"

"Will do." He gets a quick smile from her before he heads over to his duty station. A blonde is standing there, swaying on her feet slightly and blinking uncomfortably often. "You're relieved, Rodriguez," he tells her, recognising the demolitions expert he'd recruited after she was washed-out of marine training.

"You bet I am," she answers woosily. Looking up at the Chief, she thinks about it for a second. "Oh, right!" she says, grinning. Stepping back for him to move in, she almost topples over, but Jeff grabs her arm before head can meet floor.

"You'd better get yourself looked at as soon as possible, Crewman," he tells her, making sure she's steady before leaving go.

"Aw, I've got enough people looking at me. But thanks for noticing, Chief." She gives him a crisp old-fashioned salute before tottering away.

"Don' even ask," an Irish voice echoes over to Jeff from Ops.

"Come with me, Ms Rodriguez, I'll take you down to Sickbay," Kathryn says kindly, offering her an arm. She gratefully accepts it, not really in a position to do much else. "Deck five," Kathryn says as they enter the lift.

They never reach their destination though. When the doors open on deck five, the only evidence that they were ever inside is a few brightly coloured sparkles rapidly diminishing to a state of nothing.

* * *

Ezri looks across at the EMH who is still wrist deep in surgery on a patient's chest. "Doctor, Lieutenant Stadi's having trouble breathing." The Betazoid pilot's strident and desperate gasps are disturbing to hear.

The hologram speaks without glancing up. "Well then, now's your chance to shine. I can't leave just yet."

The tired nurse grabs a cart of equipment and pulls it near, frustrated now beyond belief. Someone has already raced to her position though and taken over. She watches him wide-eyed as he scans Stadi's C-spine with the medical tricorder, making sure that her head and neck aren't moved. "You have medical training?"

"I've done my share as a field medic," Tom answers her truthfully, but somewhat evasive at the same time. "There's no sign of displacement. Go ahead, see if tilting her head back helps any while I get this ready." She does as instructed as Tom prepares an EOA airway, fitting it to a laryngoscope. He gets a good airway, but notices that she has blood and other fluid bubbling thickly in her trachea. Then the pilot gives up breathing altogether. Ezri looks up at Tom in alarm. He gives her a slender tube which hisses air into itself by a vacuum pump. "Suction that out."

She performs the action quickly as she sees the Lieutenant's pallor start to darken with hypoxia. "I've got it!"

"Good," Tom says. "Make sure her head doesn't move an inch while I get this in place." He deftly threads the EOA into Stadi's esophagus and inflates the balloon syringe. "We need this to keep her from vomiting and getting debris into her lungs from the digestive tract. Then we can ventilate her without problems."

Ezri nods, remembering the relevant classes. This is quite an old treatment, but still applicable today in a pinch. She closes the patient's mouth around the tube, fixing it so that it doesn't slip.

Tom turns back to the EMH. "Doc, how long has Stadi been in arrest?"

"Two minutes, five seconds. She still has a pulse," the hologram responds calmly. "I'll be there shortly." The Doctor swaps the blood-stained anabolic protoplaser for an autosuture, running it over the patient to seal the entry wound as the assisting crewmember takes the first instrument away to be cleaned and sterilised.

Ezri starts delivering breaths through Stadi's airway via an ambu bag, forcing life giving oxygen into her lungs. Tom takes another reading. "I think it's working. You'll be able to handle it from here." He lays a hand on her shoulder, squeezing it supportively before moving on to help Bennett deal with a new complication.

Within a minute, the hologram finally appears next to her. "I see you're taking care of the matter nicely, Ensign. Good work."

Ezri is surprised to hear a compliment from the Doctor's lips, but smiles in hope as the pilot's skin starts to brighten and her vital signs improve.

The Doctor looks at Stadi's readings though and frowns. "A hemathorax on the left side, collapsed lung and she's starting to bleed internally into her chest cavity. The IVs won't hold her for long, she needs surgery," he announces. "Continue your efforts, Ensign. If she stops breathing again, even I won't be able to save her."

Ezri attends to Stadi with renewed effort as the EMH prepares to operate again. _Hang on for just a while longer, Lieutenant_, she silently pleads. She hears a cry from behind her, but tries to ignore it. She has to focus. Nothing exists but the life in her hands. Nothing!

The reason for the cry swiftly demands attention though. Ezri stares in panic as her patient vanishes in a stream of sparkles, right in front of her eyes. The effect is not unlike a transporter, but faster and more fluid in nature. Whipping her head around, she watches with incomprehension as other people are taken in the same manner, then feels an unusual sensation come over her. "Doctor!" But that single word is all she's able to call out before the effect pulls her away too. Within ten seconds the room is empty, save for one lone figure.

The Doctor taps his commbadge. "This is the Emergency Medical Hologram. I gave no permission for anyone to be transported out of Sickbay." All that remains of the patients and crew who were here are scattered pin-pricks of coloured light which soon dissolve. He moves around the room, his program manifesting this logic error as an expression of confusion. "Sickbay to Bridge?" He sighs. "I believe someone has failed to terminate my program. Please respond."

The only sounds to be heard though are the soft electronic processes of Sickbay's computer as it awaits input.


	7. Grand Theft Starship

**The Maquis Raider Class starship, Liberty. Fourteen hours later.**

Martin rubs the inside corners of his eyes with a finger as he makes his way to the engine-room, a steaming mug of hot brown liquid in his hand. Everyone has been pulling double, even triple shifts to get the Liberty up and running again before the food runs out. There isn't much the teenager is good at with regard to starship operations, but he wanted to contribute, so had become official errand boy come drug pusher. Keeping the crew high on caffeine is a vital job in itself he supposes, if you look at it the right way.

As he glances at the mug, he privately wonders if anyone has noticed the taste. Their supplies of coffee ran out two days ago and it would be rather tricky to explain what they're actually drinking now. Pushing the door sideways as it sticks yet again, Martin enters the engine-room, expecting to see B'Elanna with a variety of parts scattered around her as usual. It's amazing how much focus she has, her latest shift has lasted almost twenty-four hours now. He furrows his brow though when a quick scan of the room reveals no activity. "Lanna?" he calls.

A snuffling catches his attention. Walking behind the engine core, he finds the erstwhile engineer lying asleep on the floor, a hexagonal metal shape still in her hand. Placing the mug on a ledge, he kneels down and gently shakes her. "Lanna?" When he gets little reaction other than unintelligible mumbling, he smiles and picks up the mug again, holding it under her nose.

B'Elanna moans and slowly pries open her eyes. "Whazzit?" she mumbles, still very much in a groggy state. Then she freezes and sniffs the air, the scent of her favourite addiction penetrating her senses. Pushing herself into a sitting position, she holds out her hands towards Martin impatiently. "Coffee! Now!" It isn't even remotely a question, but a stern and irrefutable order as only a sleep deprived half-Klingon can make.

He firmly hands it over, more than familiar with this routine now after almost two weeks of keeping the supply line going. He watches B'Elanna as she drinks. "How's everything going?" he asks quietly. "Chakotay told me the last salvage team managed to bring back some decent parts for you."

B'Elanna takes another sip, barely paying attention to what he's saying. All her attention is on the mug of warm, caffeine-filled goodness she holds in her hands. It isn't until a loud clatter is heard from across the room that she even looks away from her drink. Her eyes narrow and her ears all but perk up like a dog who has just sensed the presence of its prey. Setting her mug down with a clink, she rises to her feet in one smooth motion, all feline grace. Her earlier sluggishness is all but forgotten.

Four long strides and she's standing just behind the source of the noise. Heather Keane. Nice girl, good engineer. But there's one rule here that everyone must abide by or she'd start spitting nails. If the Chief doesn't sleep, _nobody_ sleeps. She taps her foot impatiently on the deck plating as she watches the slumbering woman, a tool lying beside her, obviously the source of the clatter. Crossing her arms over her chest, she sets her best scowl onto her face. "Oh Heather," she intones, her voice a velvety soft purr that anyone who knows her has learned to fear by now.

Heather doesn't move a muscle, continuing to snore softly.

B'Elanna grins wickedly, leans down and suddenly yells at the top of her lungs, right next to Heather's ear. "UP AND AT 'EM, KEANE!"

Heather hits the proverbial roof, cursing loudly. By the time she's finished flailing about, she finds herself facing the opposite direction and staring B'Elanna right in the eyes. "Er... Good morning?" she says, trying to catch her racing heart.

"Good morning," B'Elanna sweetly replies, standing back up. "Sleep well?"

"All five minutes of it," Heather mutters as she gets to her feet, shaking her head wildly to try and get rid of the ringing in her ear. "You know if you could bottle that voice and sell it, you'd make a fortune off the narcoleptic community." She looks at B'Elanna, then bends down, picking up the thick cable she'd been having trouble with earlier. "Well... now I'm awake I might as well get back to work, huh."

B'Elanna eyes Heather as she edges around her. "Sounds like a plan," she replies, nodding briskly.

Martin watched the scene unfold with interest. Any other time and the self-confessed 'wildcat' would've responded in kind, even to B'Elanna. Their spats are pretty much legendary. Over the last couple of days though, he's noticed that Heather's moods have actually improved, something that he can only put down to coffee-substitute. He'll really have to get those grainsacks in storage scanned properly.

Looking back to the Chief, he freezes as he sees her staring at him with an odd look on her face.

"Any more left?" she asks, tilting her now empty mug towards him.

"Sure, the tray's just outside," Martin replies hesitantly. He walks backwards for a couple of steps before turning to leave, not noticing as Heather peers around the exposed juncture. The two engineers share a look.

Martin prepares two cups, B'Elanna's second and one for Heather. After a minute he walks back inside, jumping as both engineers suddenly rush him. "Uh... eager, aren't you," he says with a mild _Help me, what have I done?_ expression. Yes, scanning those grainsacks is sounding a better idea all the time.

"B'Elanna!" a male voice sounds from the wall-mounted comms panel.

She mentally screams. _Can't I even take five minutes?_ B'Elanna is sorely tempted to ignore the call, but finally relents, her playful mood - rare as it is these days - soured as she approaches the panel and presses a button. "This had better be good, Chakotay."

There's a brief pause before he responds, seemingly ignoring her tone. "I thought you'd like to know, we're within visual of the new ship the collector pulled here."

"And?" she asks impatiently.

"You'd better see this for yourself, B'Elanna."

Growling softly to herself, she takes her hand off the button and makes sure to retrieve her mug before she heads off to the bridge. With the ship comprising of only two decks, it's a short walk.

"Got one for me?" Jon pipes up as he sees the engineer enter, sipping her hot beverage.

Martin moves past her with the tray, the older Maquis pilot gratefully taking his own fix.

Chakotay declines as he drums his fingers on the side of the console. He's been getting edgy lately and it's more than just the repair schedule making him that way. He's come to an unpleasant conclusion about their predicament, but wants his best engineer to confirm it beyond any doubt before giving credence to the audacious plan he's just dreamed up.

When B'Elanna looks up, she almost drops the mug, scalding her fingers slightly as the liquid splashes over them. She barely notices though. "Federation?" she utters in shock. It hangs in space at an angle, looking small and unassuming against the scarred hulks that surround it. The design though is unmistakable, even at this distance.

Chakotay smiles briefly. "I suppose we shouldn't be surprised that Starfleet sent a ship after us. As far as they know, we crippled Gul Evek's ship and vanished into thin air."

"They're probably wondering if we've gotten our hands on a cloak," Jon says. He taps up a local scan one-handed, the other nursing his mug. The data is much slower than usual in appearing, but eventually scrolls across the screen. "Transponder reads as the USS Voyager. Their shields are gone, phasers, torpedo launchers, warp engines... half the decks are on emergency lighting only. Jesus, the collector must've hit it hard." His voice becomes sympathetic as he reels off the ship's damage. Not long ago these people would've been colleagues.

"Is anything online?" Chakotay asks carefully.

"Not a lot. Most of what's in the power distribution net - bar life support - is directed to transporters and turbolifts." Jon pauses. "If they sustained heavy casualties, getting the injured to sickbay would be top priority," he offers as an explanation.

Chakotay nods and turns his chair to face the engineer. "How are repairs going?"

Not again! Agitated, she takes another drink as she considers what line of bullshit to feed him this time. She's starting to run out of stories.

"Be honest, B'Elanna."

Her eyes flick to him in surprise. Does he _really_ want to know? Reading something in his expression, she collects her thoughts and voices a fact she didn't really want to admit out-loud, the one thing that's sure to bring all of their hopes crashing down around them. "Honestly? You want a miracle I can't give you, Chakotay. I've been doing my best with the salvage we've scavenged, but all the jury-rigging in the universe isn't going to keep us going. We've been limping through this... graveyard for almost a fortnight now. We started rationing the food three days ago." She places her free hand against the hull, looking around the compartment with a pained expression. "She's been good to us, but we've put her through too much."

B'Elanna sinks into the nearest seat, the weight of everything that's happened since arriving in this godforsaken place, the work she's put in to try and somehow pull off the impossible, suddenly taking a visible toll on her.

Martin looks at her in surprise. "I didn't think the situation was as bad as that."

"I didn't either at first," Chakotay agrees. "But over the last few days I've started to wonder." He looks back to B'Elanna. "How long?"

She shrugs. "Days. Maybe another week at most, then we're dead in space." She looks out of the front window, taking in each vessel, trying to imagine them bright and full of life, rather than the cold, dark, ruined husks they are now. "Just like they are." She shifts her head slightly, looking at Martin. The teenager she regards as a kid brother stares at the floor, stunned. "I'm sorry, Marty," she murmurs.

Jon has been studying Chakotay for the last minute. "You've got an idea, haven't you."

He nods grimly, but confidently, noting B'Elanna and Martin's faces as they look up at him. The latter looks hopeful, the former skeptical. "But it'll need everyone here to make it work." He turns to Jon. "Can you confirm the number of lifesigns aboard the Voyager?"

Jon twists slightly in his seat, tapping at his console. "None. The array must still have the survivors."

B'Elanna fidgets, unsettling memories of lying on hard metal as a large needle loomed closer and closer, rising to the surface. The pain as it pierced her was indescribable. From comparing stories though, she knows that she's the only one who recalls that aspect of their abduction. _Something else to thank my heritage for_.

"Which means," Chakotay starts, "that there's a completely empty starship sitting in front of us, just waiting to be reappropriated."

B'Elanna blinks. "What?"

"I'm serious. Let's transport to the Voyager, bring its primary systems back online and get out of this deathtrap."

B'Elanna though can think of several logistical problems right off the bat. "Chakotay, a ship that size must have a crew complement of at least a hundred, maybe two. How the hell would we operate it?"

"We'd have to automate more non-essential functions, but I think the work is manageable. I realise we'll be pushing ourselves hard, but no more than we have since we arrived here." He stares at her hard, seeing that she's still dubious. "B'Elanna, if our situation is as dire as you say it is, we've got nothing to lose by trying. At the very least it will buy us more time." He narrows his eyes at her. "Or do you want to just lie down and die?"

That finally ignites the spark in her. "I've never lain down for anyone," she hisses, shooting upright, "and I'm damned if I'm going to start with you."

"Lost that bet then," Jon quips idly, then wishes he hadn't as she locks him with a glare that could melt duranium.

"Then it's agreed. We try making the Voyager our new home," Chakotay says, having dispelled a few lingering doubts with his own rhetoric. "I'll inform Seska and everyone else up here. Can you go down below and bring your engineers into line?"

B'Elanna turns her glare to Chakotay, aware that she's being manipulated, but at this moment not caring. "I'll sell my team on it and get them over there before you pikers turn around." With that, she stalks off.

"Can't we just ask them for help?" Martin says quietly. "We'd have a better chance of seeing home again."

"Perhaps," Chakotay admits, "but it would be in handcuffs. You've heard how the government are painting us in the media. Do you really want us to spend the next few years in prison?"

The Maquis leader has a point, but It doesn't erase Martin's reluctance for one very good reason. "Chakotay, if we take their ship and they reappear in empty space..." He doesn't want to even finish that sentence.

"We don't know that. Whoever runs the array could transport them to another location."

"If they even care," Martin counters.

Chakotay stands up, his seat swinging back to front-facing. "You heard B'Elanna. We've no other choice," he tells the teen firmly. He looks to Jon. "Let me know if anything changes out there. I'll get the others ready."

Jon nods absently, his own thoughts on the matter conflicted. Trouble is, they're both right.

Martin turns his head to the pilot after Chakotay leaves the bridge. "I don't like this."

Jon can only silently agree as he starts drinking again.

* * *

"Is the airlock clear?" B'Elanna asks, all business. True to her word, she'd had no trouble convincing her team that Chakotay's plan was workable. To be truthful, most of them were relieved. More than anyone else on board, the engineers knew that B'Elanna was exaggerating their successes with the alien salvage.

"We've just linked up. I'm pressurising the tunnel now," Heather responds.

"Wish we still had transporters, this takes too long," Pete Hogan grumbles to himself.

"It takes as long as it takes, Pete," Heather says calmly. A minute or so longer and the green LED by the hatch lights up, signalling that the docking tunnel is safe to enter. B'Elanna steps forward, taps in her code and pushes the pad, watching the hatch doors part. With a wave of her finger, Heather follows her in, the rest of her motley crew close behind. Michael Jonas, the last to enter, closes the hatch before Heather gets to work again, this time on the Voyager's backup docking port. After a bare thirty seconds of tinkering, the airlock trips and the hatch opens, allowing the Maquis to pour into the ship.

As they make their way to main engineering, B'Elanna takes in the internal damage. It more or less follows the observed pattern in the derelicts they've raided. The larger the ship, the more punishment the displacement wave inflicts. Fortunately the Liberty was small enough that the damage wasn't as bad as it could have been. But combined with its age and the lack of compatible parts, the ship's death warrant had all but been signed anyway. She checks the computer panel near the blastdoors as they arrive, the last action logged being the elimination of an environmental hazard inside. Well, at least they all won't choke to death.

The doors part and B'Elanna starts assigning her team to different stations. The first thing everyone notices is the dark and silent central warpcore. Without its glow, the room seems oddly sombre. "There's physical damage to the core," Pete reports, looking at the status screen. "Seems like the Fleeters made a start on fixing it, but didn't get very far before they were taken."

"Can we finish the job?" B'Elanna enquires.

"We'll soon find out," Heather grins, ducking under the railing and moving in to inspect the damage in person.

* * *

Several hours later and B'Elanna is satisfied that the Voyager can be made fully operational again, given enough time and materials. "The ship took a battering," she reports to Chakotay on the progressively clearing bridge, "but its armour protected it from far worse."

"Armour?" he queries.

"Ablative armour," she elaborates with a smug smile. She enjoys showing off her technical knowledge. "It's designed to dissipate the energy from direct weapons fire and disintegrate at a more controlled rate than regular hull plating. Without it, this would've been just another derelict. All ship's systems seem to be powered by something other than isolinear chips too. The response time is much quicker than I'm used to. When we get all of the key systems online, I'll be taking a closer look."

"Looks like we have ourselves a new home then." Chakotay is privately impressed with the Voyager as well. _Starfleet must have made some improvements since I left_. "Do we have warp drive yet?"

B'Elanna snorts. "You're optimistic. Sublight only, Chakotay. And I'd recommend not pushing those engines too hard until we can confirm their stress tolerances."

Perhaps that _was_ a bit too much to hope for this early. "What else is online?"

"Well secondary power levels are fine for now, but they won't last forever. The warpcore _has_ to be number one priority. There's trouble with the phaserbanks, I doubt they'll be up anytime soon. The torpedo launchers seem clear though. I've got someone working on shields, long range sensors too. You have internal and short range and I've given you a working viewscreen, so we won't be flying around _completely_ in the dark. Given how undermanned we are, you're lucky to get that much."

Chakotay nods. Hearing the air-compressed hiss of the turbolift doors opening, he turns his head. He'd sent people belowdecks earlier to check out weapons and other equipment. That must be one of them now.

An imposing woman strides confidently out. She looks for all the world like a Valkyrie warrior, tall with well-defined muscles and that leather bodyvest she wears over her civilian clothes. Rumour is she sleeps in it. "Bloodstar," Chakotay acknowledges carefully. Regardless of no longer being in Starfleet, the former Marine Colonel is touchy about being addressed by her first name. Even the woman who came aboard with her - former Sergeant Highway - doesn't have that privilege, preferring to use her old rank.

"The armoury is well stocked with a variety of energy weapons and grenades, including special issue compression phaser rifles," she reports with a smile that implies pleasure in her findings.

"Good to know," Chakotay replies. "We may need them before too long."

"So we _are_ going back to the array?" Seska voices her suspicion from Tactical station.

"That would be a mistake," Bloodstar cuts in, stating her opinion with authority.

"Then it's my mistake to make," Chakotay counters. "We leave no-one behind."

"You know, I kind of miss Tuvok's dour face around here," B'Elanna smirks. The marine just glowers at them both before taking her leave of them. The fact that Bloodstar doesn't like the Vulcan is reason enough to go back for him, even if you discounted Chakotay's credo. B'Elanna privately agrees with him though. Leaving friends behind isn't what the Maquis are about. No-one knows why Tuvok wasn't returned to the Liberty with the rest of them, but she knows Chakotay will do whatever he can to get him back.

Chakotay turns to the Bajoran. "Seska, I'm hoping a larger show of force will convince the owners of the array to return both Tuvok and ourselves to the Alpha Quadrant, so I'll need you on top of your game."

"Being on top is what I'm good at," she answers back, perfectly aware of the double-entendre.

Chakotay just smiles slightly. "So several of the crew tell me." He ignores her outraged expression, turning back to his Chief Engineer. "B'Elanna, I'll need warp speed as soon as you can give it to me."

She nods. "I'll see what I can do to speed things up without compromising the work."

"Thank you." The Maquis leader finally turns to Jon as he takes the Captain's chair. "Is the navigation console operational?"

"Everything seems to check out okay. Pete said that a power surge shorted out a lot of the sub-circuits, but he's managed to replace them from storage." He tries to avoid looking at the stain of dried blood below him. Whoever that belonged to, he hopes they got medical attention quickly.

"Plot a direct course to the array then and take us out, half impulse for now."

Jon does as instructed, using the co-ordinates he'd taken from the Liberty's databanks. However the moment he tries to engage thrusters to start their momentum, his screen suddenly blinks out. "Computer's not responding. It's cut off my access to helm controls."

Chakotay's brow furrows. He twists in the chair to Seska. "Can you transfer the helm to your station?"

"Hold on," Seska mutters, tapping pads, then her screen does the same. "What the hell?"

The ship is thrown into the eerie glow of red alert. "Authorisation denied," comes the computer's dulcet tones. B'Elanna literally springs into action, realising the ship isn't going to be such easy pickings after all.

"B'Elanna!" Chakotay shouts above the red alert siren.

"Damnit, I thought it was too good to be true," she spits, looking at the engineering display. "There's some kind of automated security program in operation. Looks like the computer identified us as hostiles as soon as we tried to move. All propulsion and weapons systems have been locked off."

Chakotay inwardly curses and moves quickly over to her. "Can you get them back?"

"I can try, but any more tampering and the computer might set-off other defensive measures against us."

"Who has authorisation to override this?"

B'Elanna thumps her controls as they flicker and starts working desperately. A flashing message tells her what she needs to know. "Any of the senior staff, but that doesn't help us."

"Maybe it can. Can you hack into the memory dump and clone authorisation?"

She sighs and starts tapping again. "Probably, but the codes also require _retinal_ scan. How the hell do we get around that?"

Chakotay has to admit he's stumped there and the loud siren isn't exactly conductive to his thinking. It's then that a solution comes over audio. "Hello?" a confused voice comes over. "This is Sickbay. Why is the ship on red alert?"

"The Doctor!" Chakotay and B'Elanna both shout in unison and race off. The turbolift refuses to open though, so B'Elanna wrenches the access panel off the jeffries tubes. "Seska, you have the bridge," Chakotay calls back just before he disappears inside.

* * *

Tuvok becomes aware of a new sensation, similar to that of a transporter beam activating. Quickly fighting his way to consciousness he discovers he can no longer feel any pain, only the cool sensation of satin bedclothes on his naked skin. Opening his eyes, he sees a sumptuously appointed bedchamber with himself centred on a king size bed, silken wall coverings and soft pillows scattered about. As he sits up and scans the room visually, the only door opens and three elfin featured young ladies enter.

_Welcome_, one of them projects at him, _I am Enn_.

_Welcome_, the next sends to him, telepathically, _I am Sia_.

_Welcome_, the last mentally voices, _I am Nah_.

"Where am I?" Tuvok asks.

_This is the reproductive center. We have been chosen as your partners for this cycle_, Sia sends.

"Chosen in what way?"

_Mistress Suspiria found you for us, to give us children who can survive and prosper on the surface of our world once more. With your assistance, our twenty generations of entrapment in these subterranean caverns will come to an end_.

"A logical desire. But why do you think I could succeed in fathering children with your species? You know nothing about me and I know little about you."

_Mistress Suspiria has searched long and hard for our ideal partners, making sure we are compatible in every way. Now that she has found you, let us begin_, Nah thinks, climbing onto the bed.

_Yes, we are near the end of our cycle_, Enn sends, also climbing up. _This will be pleasant for all of us if you co-operate_.

Feigning acquiescence, Tuvok stretches his arms out and gathers the three young ladies to him. Sliding his hands to Enn and Sia's shoulders, he gives them a neck pinch then shifts to Nah before she can broadcast any cry for help, telepathically or otherwise. Gently he lowers the three of them to comfortable positions on the bed. The skin to skin contact had opened their minds to his and he now knows a great deal about the Ocampa as they call themselves, despite the briefness of their mental contact. Their desire to bear his children is very real and very intense. In many ways, these three are going through a hormonal surge similar to the Pon Farr.

Certain that they are unharmed and resting comfortably, Tuvok finds his clothing neatly folded on a small table and gets dressed.


	8. Not in Kansas Anymore

"Why did the array only send the doctor back?" Chakotay wonders, crawling in the confined space. "And more importantly, why didn't we detect the transport?"

B'Elanna, just ahead of him, arrives at a junction and starts taking the stepladder down. "There must be something wrong with internal sensors. Something I missed." She's not convinced by her words though. Those systems were fine when she last checked them. She jumps onto the floor and proceeds to open up the hatch leading down to the next deck.

Chakotay finishes climbing down and slips through the hatch, his feet searching for the rungs of another ladder and finding them. "Don't try to _persuade_ him too hard will you. Just because we only need a retinal scan, it doesn't mean you can rip out his eyes."

B'Elanna just snorts in reply. As they exit the jeffries tube and head down the corridor to Sickbay, she scans ahead with her tricorder. "Damn it, I'm still not reading any lifesigns."

"Could the Doctor be masking them?" Chakotay asks, suddenly wondering if this is a trap.

"I don't know, but I intend to find out." She powers into Sickbay, Chakotay just behind her, only to find the room deserted. B'Elanna is now getting really pissed off. "Where the HELL is he?"

"Finally, someone's answered my communications." A bald-headed man enters the main area of Sickbay from a door in the back wall. Then he gets a good look at them. "Wait a minute, who are you? Where's Captain Janeway? What's going on here?"

"The Captain isn't available at the moment," Chakotay replies, caught on the hop.

"Not available?"

B'Elanna looks at her tricorder in surprise. "He's a hologram!"

"Of course I'm a hologram!" he says brusquely. "A Mark One Emergency Medical Hologram to be precise. Now I'd appreciate an answer to my question. I don't recognise either of you from the crew manifest. Who are you and why are you here? Are you responsible for this red alert?" He stands stiffly with arms folded and a stern expression.

Chakotay wonders if he can bluff the hologram. Thinking quickly, he gives him what sounds like a plausible excuse to his ears. "I'm Captain Chakotay of Starfleet Special Services, Doctor. My team has come aboard to prevent the Voyager from being taken by hostile forces until such time as your remaining crew can be recovered."

He looks hesitant. "You don't look like Special Services personnel."

"We've been undercover." Chakotay can see B'Elanna surreptitiously manipulating a nearby console and is determined to distract the hologram long enough for her to complete whatever she's doing.

The hologram examines him, his eyes processing more physiological detail than any human eye could. The man's heart rate is elevated, but if he's telling the truth that could easily be explained by action against enemy combatants. His eyes are unmoving, offering no clue. Having little reason not to give him the benefit of the doubt, he relaxes his posture. "I see! Well I should point out that as the name of my program implies, I am really for emergency use only and should be deactivated as soon as a suitable replacement can be found. Do you have a doctor in your team, Captain?"

In the corner of his eye, Chakotay sees B'Elanna urgently mouthing 'Yes'. "He's helping to secure the Bridge right now," he lies, keeping his face neutral. He knows the slightest tic could give him away.

"Excellent," the Doctor brightens. "When the current incursion has been dealt with, inform him that the crew autopsies will need to be finished and their death certificates recorded."

"How many are left?" B'Elanna interjects.

The Doctor turns to her. "Only five, so the assignment shouldn't take long."

"Well, thank you for your due diligence, Doctor," Chakotay tells him with a smile.

The hologram seems slightly surprised at being thanked, but nods in acknowledgment. Placing his arms by his sides, he appears to be waiting for something.

"Computer, deactivate EMH program," B'Elanna orders. The Doctor flickers into nothingness as the computer follows the command.

Chakotay moves over to her. "It was that easy?" he asks in surprise.

"I've been checking out its program while you were talking," she tells him animatedly, unable to tear her eyes away from the screen. "The coding is amazing. Self-aware, fully adaptive, completely self-contained. Even if the main computer was compromised, it could run intact. I'd give almost anything to meet its designer."

"That explains why you're so excited. But how does that help us in our current situation? A hologram can't provide the retina pattern we need."

"No, but maybe someone back there can." She turns, looking to the door at the back of the room. "Five crewmembers aren't registered as dead yet. If any of them are on the senior staff, I can alter their medical records to accept one of our retina prints as theirs, stating that a rescan was required due to ocular injuries. With this system being isolated from the main computer, the active security program isn't restricting operational access."

Chakotay hadn't thought of that. B'Elanna can be downright devious when she wants to be. He casts his eyes to the back of the room, where the hologram had entered from. "The morgue?"

"Don't worry, I can pull up the files the EMH was working on from here."

Chakotay bends slightly to look at the screen, thankful that he doesn't have to examine any bodies. For all the suffering he's seen, morgues still unsettle him.

"We're in luck," B'Elanna states after running through the flagged headers.

Chakotay reads the file she brings up. "Senior Flight Control Officer, Lieutenant Janecea Stadi."

"I'm looking at the EMH's report now." B'Elanna scans the screen quickly. "She was returned several hours after the crew were taken. Respiratory arrest, internal bleeding... weakened heart due to electro-plasmatic shock... It looks like she didn't survive transport, so the array sent her back."

"If that's the case, why did they keep her for so long?" Chakotay muses out loud.

"Maybe she was still useful, even as a corpse," she replies uncomfortably.

Chakotay doesn't like the sound of that. "If whoever runs the array see us as nothing more than lab rats to experiment on as they please, it's going to be a difficult negotiation." He looks down at B'Elanna. "I assume you'll be adopting the identity of Lieutenant Stadi?"

B'Elanna nods. "Just don't expect me to fly us anywhere."

* * *

As Tuvok strides down an otherwise deserted hall, he recognises Ensign Vorik as he walks towards him. "I greet you, Vorik. Live long and prosper," he says in the traditional greeting.

The young Vulcan's face betrays a moment of surprise at the sight of the undercover officer the Voyager was sent to retrieve. However his training quickly kicks in and he hides the emotion behind an expressionless face. "Peace and long life, Lieutenant Tuvok," he replies in the expected counter-greeting. He lifts an eyebrow. "I had... not expected to see you here. Were you given companions also?"

"Indeed," Tuvok replies, pretending not to have noticed Vorik's brief flash of emotion. "It appears that these Ocampa have been searching for a compatible species to introduce new physiological traits to their genome. If successful, they hope to reclaim the surface of their homeworld. An environmental catastrophe of some kind rendered it an inhospitable desert approximately three-hundred Federation standard years ago."

Vorik nods. "I learned the same. I have formulated the hypothesis that both our crews have been subjected to biometric tests of which we were the only ones to pass."

"A logical hypothesis given the facts at hand. Tell me, is the Voyager here?" Tuvok asks.

"We were following your trail into the Badlands region of space when a displacement wave of extreme magnitude collided with the ship." Vorik brow furrows in concentration. "I cannot recall anything further however."

"Interesting. How many Vulcans were on the Voyager at the time of these events?"

"Myself and Ensign T'Prena."

"Then I suggest we look for Ensign T'Prena. She may require our assistance, and if we three are all that remain, we must unite our resources."

"I concur," Vorik agrees. Having reached a logical course of action, the two set off in search of T'Prena.

* * *

Harry slowly wakes from limbo. As his eyes adjust to the light, he finds himself in a place that's brightly, almost painfully lit in white; very sterile. Propping himself up, he looks down to see he's been placed on some kind of med-bed. But this doesn't look like any sickbay he's familiar with. Where is he? He remembers a blinding ellipse of energy on the viewscreen, bracing himself for collision, then...

Nothing! He jumps down from the bed, swaying slightly as his equilibrium fails to adjust itself. Further confusion sets in as he feels the odd texture of the white robe that now adorns him. _What the...?_ After walking unsteadily to a wide door that appears to be the only way out of this room, he tests the servo mechs and is surprised to see them open under his pressure. A corridor lies beyond, but Harry is forced to duck back inside when a moving shadow comes towards him. He looks around the room for his commbadge, hoping to contact the ship, but is dismayed to find it neatly dissected on an exam tray. _Damn it!_

The doors part again and a blonde-haired pre-teen girl enters. She moves directly to Harry and reaches for his head, pulling it down and peering into his eyes. "You are making progress, human bi-ped."

"Who are you?" Harry asks fearfully, feeling a crackle of power from her icy touch.

"My name is Suspiria. I have arranged care for you while your condition runs its course. I..." She breaks off, the first hint of warmth coming to her voice. "_We_ are grateful to you and your home ship for falling into our displacement net. I am close to my answers. Very close."

Harry swallows, his throat dry. "Where exactly am I?"

"You are inside a subterranean city, located on a world in an area of space I believe you call the Delta Quadrant," she tells him precisely, if obliquely on the details.

_The Delta Quadrant? That could be years, if not decades away from home_. Harry starts to panic. "Where's my ship then... the rest of the crew?"

"Most of the test subjects proved unsuitable for my purposes. They will wake soon and be allowed to transport back to their vessel of origin."

Harry pushes her prying hands away from assessing his condition. "Test subjects? What have you been doing to them?" He can feel himself becoming agitated at the thought of what kind of tests she means.

"You do not need to know that information. However-"

"That's where you're wrong," Harry interrupts, his voice getting louder as he speaks. "You see I do need to know. I need to know what right you have to kidnap us and perform experiments on us without our permission." He can feel the heat in the room rising... or is it him?

"It was necessary," Suspiria starts, her voice becoming frosty. "I warn you, this outburst will only serve to increase your blood pressure and aggravate your condition."

_Condition?_ "I demand to be released from here and returned to the Voyager."

"That is not possible."

"Make it possible!" Harry shouts.

"No!" Suspiria says simply.

Harry lashes out in frustration, sending an equipment tray flying across the room. His rapidly spreading fever is making him lose rationality. He proceeds to trash the room, spilling trays and smashing medical flasks. When he tries to do the same to the computer terminals, Suspiria gestures two masked people into the room. "This will not help you. You will cease!" Her voice is pure ice now.

Harry struggles against the attendants' restraining grip, trying to bite and kick them. "Somebody help me!" he screams.

Suspiria scowls, turning to a medic in white. "Bring the woman here. A companion from his own ship may placate him." The medic leaves at once and soon returns, wheeling in another bed with T'Prena lying on it. She too is unconscious and dressed in the same tunic as Harry.

Harry stops struggling at the sight of her. "Is she alright?" The attendants look at each other and reluctantly let him go. Staggering over to her bed, he touches her neck and breathes a sigh of relief as he feels a regular pulse. She doesn't feel feverish either.

The medic tries to reassure him by giving him some answers. "The Vulcan is fine. Our function is to merely care for all of you until the Mistress clears you for release. She only trials one at a time with the genetic tester virus."

Harry can feel himself becoming angry again. Damn it, they don't have the right to do this to him. To anyone. "And what happens if I fail this _trial_?"

The medic glances unsurely at Mistress Suspiria.

"You will not fail," Suspiria responds with certainty.

Harry doesn't trust her. He wants to know what she's done to him, he's feeling weaker every moment. His legs give way and he falls to the floor. With some effort, he pushes himself up. "Tell me what this is," he grinds out.

"In time," Suspiria says simply before turning her back on him.

Gathering the last of his energy, Harry springs up and tries to rush the girl, but the attendants merely grab him again before he can reach her. "NO!" he calls out. But there's little strength in his voice. Finally giving in to the fever, he blacks out, slamming to the floor.

Unobserved, T'Prena's closed eyelids twitch as she begins to revive. They open once, shifting to observe the scene occurring in the room. _I am captured. One of my crewmates is injured or ill. I must wait for a better opportunity to liberate us_. She witnesses a young girl vanish in a sparkling fire of translocation before closing her eyes and settling back into absolute stillness as the attendants finish placing Ensign Kim on his bed. She controls her body's responses as she senses them moving closer to her. There's the sound of some kind of scanning device, then moments later a door appears to open and close.

Taking a carefully calculated risk, T'Prena cracks her eyes open again. Her ruse appears to have worked, they were unaware of her consciousness. Rising up in one fluid motion, she slides off the bed and steps over to check on the young Ensign.

* * *

After a lengthy search of the Bridge, an innocuous and almost invisible panel near Tactical station reveals the retinal scanner. Using Sickbay's standalone system, placing her own retina pattern in Lieutenant Stadi's medical file wasn't even a challenge for B'Elanna. Now is the moment of truth.

"Please submit retinal scan," the computer drones after she inputs the authorisation code she successfully hacked.

B'Elanna steps forward and places her head millimeters away from the panel. Two lines of almost white light pass over her eyeball, both horizontally and vertically. She holds her breath as the computer processes the scan.

"Identity confirmed. Security programs deactivated."

She breathes out and steps back from the panel, thumbing a button to close it. "Try it, Jon."

The pilot re-inputs course and heading. So far, so good. "Engaging impulse engines... now!" The ship immediately starts to move and Jon smiles. "You're a genius, B'Elanna."

She smirks as everyone on the Bridge looks appreciatively at her. "Child's play!" She flicks her eyes to Chakotay. "If you need any more miracles, I'll be in Engineering bringing the warp engines back online." Chakotay nods at her and she leaves via the turbolift. Fortunately their destination is close enough not to require warp speed, but B'Elanna is still making those engines a priority.

* * *

Some time later, Chakotay leans back in the surprisingly comfortable Captain's chair, looking at the large array they'd woken up on after being pulled to this quadrant. "Scan for Vulcan lifesigns," he orders. It's almost like being back in Starfleet, a warm if slightly unsettling feeling.

"Stand by," Seska tells him, "the sensors are a little sluggish." But eventually she completes the job. "No sign of him. Though it's possible that-" Then her fingers fly over the controls again as something new happens. "Hold on. This is interesting."

"What's happening?" Chakotay asks, knowing that the sensors have picked up the same thing he's just seen on the viewscreen.

"The array just shot out some kind of focused energy pulse into space."

"Can you determine its target?"

Seska pauses. "Extrapolating course... got it! There's an L-Class planet approximately five point seven billion kilometres away. That must be the target, there's nothing else between it and the array."

Chakotay stares at the viewscreen. There's no further activity. "We're going to that planet," he says decisively. "I have a feeling that whoever's there will know about our mysterious kidnapper." The implication that Tuvok is being held there is plain.

"It'll take around nine hours to reach at our current maximum speed," Jon reports, setting a new course for the destination Seska sends him.

"Understood. Engage impulse engines."

The Voyager moves away from the array on thrusters, then upon reaching safe distance, speeds away to the L-Class planet.

* * *

Kathryn stirs slightly, then slowly her eyes blink, clearing away the stickiness of sleep. Turning her head, she quickly shuts them again and moans softly as a sudden brightness assaults them. Placing a hand to her eyes, she pushes herself up with the other. Blinking again, she peers through her fingers, then her hand falls to her lap as the sight before her registers in her rapidly clearing mind. She looks about herself mystified. The long grass of a lush meadow surrounds her, flattened where she's been lying. A pair of horses graze nearby. Beyond them more fields, some of them grain filled. In the near distance, a wide spread of trees cover the horizon and in the far distance, a range of large hills. She slowly stands up, wiping blades of green from her uniform, then squints her eyes as she takes in the sky. It's a brilliant blue, virtually cloudless with just a few wisps of cirrus. A bright sun shines down, gently warming her.

A groan from nearby cuts into her examination of the landscape. A gold uniformed officer slowly gets up, rubbing the back of his head. "Captain?" he asks upon seeing her.

Kathryn smiles quickly, letting him know she's alright. "Lieutenant," she acknowledges formally. "Do you have any idea where we are?"

Jeff looks around himself carefully. "Nothing's springing to mind, Captain." His expression is one of suspicion, fairly normal for the Security Chief. "Last thing I remember is the displacement wave hitting the ship."

"Same here," she affirms. Noises from around them indicate that more people are waking up. Kathryn motions for Jeff to follow her and they wander around the meadow for the next ten minutes, finding various shipmates, but none of them with any definite recollection of what happened after the wave's initial strike. "Organise search parties," she tells Jeff. "I want to know if we're all here. And if not, how many are missing."

He nods at her, then moves towards three of his people, tapping his badge before he reaches them to make sure communications are still available. "At ease," he says as they start to come to attention. "I realise that you might feel disorientated, but we've got work to do. The Captain wants a search of the area performed and I want it done by the numbers." He eyes one of them. "Darcy, are there any more of our staff around here?"

Darcy, a young woman with a headband pulling back her long hair, doesn't look entirely sure. "I think I've seen another four or five, sir. But none of the others."

"Alright, draft in any other crew you deem necessary and start sending them out in three man teams. I want them sweeping the area for missing crew. Anyone they find, have them directed here for a headcount. We're without tricorders or phasers, so everyone's to keep their wits about them. Status updates in at the standard rate. I'll take due north."

"Aye, sir." Darcy turns away and taps her commbadge to relay the Chief's orders.

Jeff glances at the other two officers. "Gunn, Donaldson, you're with me. Let's go."

* * *

Tom walks by the bank of a small stream, wondering when or even if he'll meet another person. After feeling the force of cosmic energy slamming itself into the ship, he'd half wondered if there would be any pieces left to pick up. Perhaps he'd wake up in Sickbay if his run of luck turned, but it was more likely he'd come to on the Bridge... or whatever remained of it. Probably the last place he expected to regain consciousness was where he actually did - in the undergrowth of a dense woodland. As he picked his way through the wood, the trees had quickly thinned out before he uncovered the stream and decided to follow it to its source.

The air is clean, the temperature just right for a warm spring's day, a slight breeze blowing. At least whoever's spirited him from the ship has brought him somewhere comfortable. Still, there's a nagging doubt in his head. An undeniable feeling that he should be doing something... something important. He can't shake it. It's like knowing the answer to an exam question, it's on the tip of your mind but you just can't pull it out.

Stopping for a few minutes, Tom dips a hand in the stream, letting the cool, clear water flow through his fingers before cupping a palmful and raising it to his lips. After taking a couple of drinks, he sits by the bank and closes his eyes. Using a Bajoran technique he picked up a while ago, he focuses his mind on the feeling, letting associated memories flow like the stream until they hit a dam. He briefly loses his focus with the surprise of this barrier, but regains it without too much trouble. Hitting it once again, Tom makes a real effort to push through. His temples start to throb, but he continues pushing steadily.

A sudden series of scrambled images pass like lightning through his mind, as if one brick has been ripped out of the wall, allowing a thin strip of light to shine through. The pulse of the ship winking out in front of his eyes. Words, faces... sub-cranial hematoma... a bald man he can't remember seeing before, the speckled face of a young Trill woman... Ezri. Breathe, damnit... Doc, how long? Then the sudden sharp whine of a flatline.

"Hello?"

Tom's eyes pop open, the pain in his head quickly subsiding. Rising to his feet, he tries to ascertain where the voice has just come from.

"Hello? Anyone, please?"

Recognising the voice, Tom quickly pinpoints the right direction and starts moving. "Stay where you are, Ezri. I'll come to you," he calls out.

There's a moment of silence before the voice adopts a note of hope. "Tom?"

He moves through the trees. Within half a minute, he emerges into a small clearing, the petite nurse standing in the middle of it, her posture nervous. "What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?" he quips, breaking the tension.

Ezri spins round, startled, but relief surges through her as she sees the smile of her new friend. "I haven't a clue," she says, answering the substance of his quip. "I remember the Captain calling a red alert, something fell on me, then... I woke up here. Where are we?"

"Wish I knew," he tells her, walking over to her. "There are worse places we could be though."

Ezri watches his expression become distracted. "What is it?" Tom's eyes flick back to her, then he gestures with his head. Complying with his wish, she follows him out of the clearing and in no time at all they emerge by a stream. She eagerly moves over to it, then hesitates, glancing back at him.

Tom shrugs in response to her silent query. "It hasn't poisoned me yet."

Crouching on the grassy bank, she decides to sip at a palmful, moistening her dry mouth. Her sense of taste is telling her it's simple H2O, but of course taste isn't infallible. She turns again to see that Tom has joined her.

"My memory from the time the wave hit to waking up here isn't continuous," he says as he sits down beside her. "Something happened in-between. Something that's been artificially blocked."

Ezri's eyes widen. "How do you know?"

"Something just felt off," he dismisses. "I partly pushed through the block just before you called out. I'd like you to try a little meditation exercise I know, see if your memory shows the same discontinuity. Are you game?"

The thought of someone raking through her mind and weeding out her experiences is disconcerting at best. Ezri shifts her legs into a comfortable sitting position. "I'll try."

Tom smiles reassuringly at her. "Close your eyes then and concentrate on my words."


	9. Appearances Can Be Deceiving

Jeff and his team move through the northern woodland that was their heading. Two crewmembers have been found and sent back to the designated congregation point, but it's slow going. As they carefully tread through the undergrowth, it's Donaldson who breaks first, having reached his personal limit of companionable silence. "So... Gunn, you're a Security officer," he chirps.

Gunn pauses for a moment. "Well spotted. I can see why you made Ensign."

"No no no." He laughs lightly. "I mean you're a Security officer and your last name is Gunn. That's pretty funny." He stops though when he sees no-one is joining in. "Sorry."

Jeff half smiles to himself. "If you think that's funny, you should hear her first name."

"Which is?" Donaldson asks with interest.

Gunn focuses in on the conversation in alarm. "Oh no, don't you dare-"

"Raye." Jeff waits for a reaction from him. Gunn just puts her head in her hands.

"Raye," he says, rolling it around. "Unusual, but not..." Then his eyes widen as the penny finally drops. "Raye Gunn? A Security officer called Raye Gunn?" He starts to shake with laughter.

"Lieutenant Junior Grade Raye Gunn, Ensign," she snaps. "Now be quiet."

They trudge on in silence for around half a minute before Donaldson is unable to resist. "So how'd you get Raye Gunn anyway? Didn't your parents notice?"

Jeff chuckles softly.

Raye sighs in resignation. "They named me that on purpose so that I wouldn't join Starfleet Security."

"So why did you?"

"To annoy them," she answers simply. "And I happen to look great in gold."

A rustle in the thicket ahead immediately halts the banter as the three drop to the ground. Jeff hurriedly taps his commbadge. "Rollins to Darcy," he whispers. "Has anyone reported diverting to our position?"

There's a short pause before the answer comes through. "No sir, you should be on your own."

"Maybe it's another crewmember," Raye says almost under her breath.

They wait a few seconds, watching the area in front of them closely. There's another rustle, but no-one appears.

"Standby, Darcy," Jeff tells her.

"Acknowledged."

He closes the channel and is about to move forward when something finally reveals itself. A quite aged, but human looking man strides through the vegetation, wearing overalls and holding a banjo in his hand. He passes in front of the three Fleeters, then vanishes amongst the trees to their left, seemingly without noticing them. Jeff furrows his brow, then slowly rises, followed by the two behind him. "Alright, lets go." He and Raye are over ten metres away though before realising they're on their own. "That wasn't a suggestion," he hisses, looking over his shoulder.

The younger officer shakes his head. "With all due respect, sir, no way. I know what happens here, I've seen Deliverance."

Jeff rolls his eyes. He can't be dealing with Donaldson's vintage movie obsession now of all times. "Donaldson, he's an eighty-something year old hillbilly with a musical instrument. You're a twenty-five year old Starfleet officer with combat training. Now unless he takes you by surprise and beats you to death with his banjo, you've got nothing to worry about."

He still looks unsure, so Raye strides over and grabs his arm, dragging him in the direction the old man went. Jeff just shakes his head and moves after them.

* * *

Ezri screws up her face as a stabbing pain penetrates her mind. "I can't remember," she cries.

She's becoming frustrated. "Don't batter the wall," Tom reminds her metaphorically. "Just keep the pressure against it steady until you find that loose brick, then push it out."

She shakes her head helplessly as she struggles against the same block Tom had found in his own memories. "It's solid, I can't find any weak spot."

"I have confidence in you, Ezri. You can do it, just be patient for a little longer."

Why is he so nice? A man like Tom could make friends without even trying. Why is he interested in the outcast... the failure? She exhales slightly when she feels him take her hand. Fortifying herself, she makes another attempt. She has to do this, she can't disappoint him. Building up the pressure again, she feels a vein in her head throbbing as she tries to locate this elusive 'loose brick'. But just as she feels she's about to pass out...

Breathing hard as the ship shakes her like a pea in a rattle... Doctor Fitzgerald throwing himself at Bennett just before a section of ceiling comes crashing down on them... The shimmer of transporter rematerialisation, then... Images of pain and suffering come thick and fast. An older Lieutenant, his face burned raw, screaming in agony before her hypospray delivers blessed relief. A dark-skinned Crewman with a ruined abdomen. A woman her own age staring glassy eyed as a thin, jagged rod of metal sticks out of her upper thigh. Then Ezri's heart quickens as she sees something that really scares her. An image of death and both she and Tom are right in the middle of it. Blood flows, heart monitors whine...

Ezri's eyes snap open and she finds herself back by the stream, just like she should be. Tom's fingers are still interlaced with hers. Looking up, she knows there must be barely controlled panic visible in her eyes. "People were dying, Tom. Lots of people. What are we going to do?"

"I was hoping that was just a flashback," he murmurs, recalling the fragments of his own forced recollections. Tom glances down at her commbadge. "Have you tried that?"

Ezri looks down and shakes her head, cursing herself for not thinking of it right away. Fighting to get herself under control, she touches the badge. "Ensign Tigan to Captain Janeway."

There's a pause, then her voice comes over, warped by static but just about clear enough to understand. "Good to hear from you, Ensign. Where are you?"

"I..." She looks around herself. "I can't say for certain, Captain. We're in a wood and have found a small stream running through it."

"We?" comes the query.

"Tom Paris, Captain," he says. "I found the Ensign in a clearing near the stream. We're going to try and follow it out to its source, get some better visibility."

"Understood, Mr Paris. I have security teams searching the woodland for missing crew, they may meet up with you. If not, keep me posted on your progress and let me know as soon as you're able to describe a position. We'll come and get you both."

"Will do," he replies. "There's something else you should know though."

"Oh?"

"We've found a discontinuity in our memories. There's a passage of time between the displacement wave hitting us and waking up here that's been blocked by someone or something."

"Interesting that you should say that," she responds after a few moments. "A handful of people have reported having the strange feeling that they've forgotten something important. That could be the explanation. Do you know any more?"

"Well we _have_ made some progress in regaining those memories, but they're not good. How many people are missing?"

"Our headcount is currently seventy-one including the search parties. Why?"

Tom looks at Ezri as he imparts the grim news. They both saw it, so it must be real. "We both remember Sickbay being over-run with casualties and I definitely recall at least one person flatlining. The rest of the crew might not be missing at all... they could all be dead back on the Voyager."

There's another pause as she digests this information. "No offence, Mr Paris, but I hope you're wrong. That sounds like something I don't want to remember."

_I hope I am too_, he thinks to himself. "It's a possibility we need to be prepared for, Captain."

"Alright! Get back to us as soon as you can and look after yourself out there," Kathryn tells him in a softer voice. "You too, Ensign."

"We'll do our best, Captain," Ezri says. "Tigan out."

With that, Tom gets to his feet, pulling Ezri up with him. "We'd best get going. I have a feeling the less time we spend here the better."

Ezri nods, aware that he's still holding her hand, but not commenting on the fact. She can feel herself taking strength and a sense of safety from it. She lets Tom takes the lead as they briskly walk along the bank of the stream, striking out into the woods once more.

* * *

The security team manage to trail the old man for ten minutes before they find out where he's going. They watch him exit the treeline into a large clearing and head towards a huddle of wooden buildings.

"I think I've got a burr in my shoe."

Donaldson gets a collective "Shhh!" The old man crosses the remainder of the clearing and walks over to the largest structure - a hay loft.

"I have. It's digging into my instep. I hate nature." Donaldson inspects his boot. "Ow! Watch it, Gunn," he cries as he rubs his shin.

Raye grits her teeth. "Shut up you idiot. He'll hear us."

The old man moves around to the loft's side and lifts a section of the timber away, revealing some kind of control panel. He taps a few buttons and stares intently at it.

"What do you suppose he's doing?" Raye whispers.

Jeff watches closely, but there's not much to go on, especially at this distance. "I don't know, but he doesn't look happy at what he's seeing."

The old man eventually lowers the timber hatch and disappears behind the loft.

"Alright, you two wait here. I'll go over and see what that panel is. Let me know if it looks like he's coming back."

"I wouldn't recommend it, sir," Donaldson tells him.

Jeff merely stares at him before leaving their cover and quickly soft-stepping over to the side of the loft. He can hear the hum of the panel's power source as he lifts the hatch. Predictably the symbology and script on the two screens are foreign to his eyes, but the format of some of the imagery holds a certain familiarity. He touches the second, smaller screen and moves the view about. It looks like some kind of sensor net. So those dots must be...

The Security Chief comes to his realisation just a second too late as a solid object smashes into the side of his head. As he crumples to the ground, he swimmingly sees the old man standing over him, hefting the banjo like a sword. "Interference will not be tolerated," he says in a surprisingly strong voice. Jeff curses Donaldson inwardly before another strike heralds lights-out time.

The old man had reappeared so fast, neither of the junior security officers had a chance to transmit a warning. Seeing red, Raye breaks cover and runs over to the loft as he lands the second blow. Feeling a grim sense of vindication, Donaldson reluctantly follows her. Stopping just before she reaches the assailant, Raye falls into a standard fighting stance. "Drop the banjo!" she yells. "Do it or I swear I'll hurt you." The old man scowls at them both, but otherwise doesn't react. "I said drop it!" she shouts again, moving closer. "Now!" They're only three metres apart now, but the old man stays frozen.

Donaldson looks nervous as he all but hides behind her. "Gunn, trust me, I know how this goes" he urges. "He's going to be a Kung-Fu master. He'll wig out and floor us with banjo hits and stuff, like Jackie Chan."

"He's not a Kung-Fu master," Raye growls in annoyance. "He's just a shrivelled old prune who got frickin' lucky!"

As if to prove her wrong though, the old man suddenly takes to the air in a flying leap and comes down where Raye was standing... until Donaldson knocked her out of the way. Raye jumps back to her feet, but the banjo which has just been flung at her sends Raye sprawling as it crashes into her midsection at speed. She heaves for breath, unable to get back up.

In a streak of desperation, Donaldson grabs the banjo and swings it wildly about to deter another attack, all the while circling around to where the Chief's body lies. The old man's eyes follow the motion of the instrument, then he charges again. Barely springing to the side in time, Donaldson manages to land a glancing blow, enough to drive his opponent hard into the open hatch. Smashing into the panel, the man's body thrashes about as the damaged and exposed system envelops him in long, crackling arcs of electricity.

A low hum starts to rise in volume. Taking this as a bad sign, Donaldson quickly backs off. Seeing Raye struggling to get back to her feet, holding her middle painfully, he grabs hold of her and half pulls, half drags his colleague to the cover of the trees. Just before they reach the edge though, the hum reaches a crescendo and a massive release of power throws them both to the ground. The entire clearing is brightly illuminated as wide shafts of blinding blue-white light lance out in every direction.

* * *

Most of the personnel gathered in the field hear a brief high-pitched hum before a sonic blast bounces across the landscape, seemingly from the direction of the trees. All eyes turn to it and are astonished to see a dark, jagged rip appear in the sky.

"What the hell is that?" Kathryn exclaims, staring at the phenomenon. The amplified noise was disconcerting, but not half as much as a bite suddenly being taken out of reality.

"It sounded like some kind of energy burst." As he speaks, Zane wonders - and not for the first time since he woke up - why his throat is so rough. He feels like coughing up sandpaper every time he opens his mouth.

Scanning the crowd, Kathryn spies the logistics co-ordinator Jeff assigned. "Lieutenant Darcy," she calls.

The blonde hurries over to report, anticipating what she'll be asked. "Teams Bravo and Hotel have both signalled, Captain. We haven't heard from Team Alpha since the Chief indicated that they were following an unidentified individual. I've diverted Bravo to Alpha's position."

"Good work," Kathryn tells her. "Contact Bravo and tell them I'll meet them at the treeline."

Darcy pauses only for a second before nodding. "Aye, Captain." She moves away again.

Zane leans in to her confidentially as an excuse to lower the strain on his voice. "Captain, you are aware that it is my job to lead any mission specific away team? Especially when there are unknown risks involved."

She looks at him perfectly innocently. "Commander, do I look like the type of Captain who's happy to cocoon herself away from anything and everything that might so much as break a fingernail?"

"Not so far," he answers, guessing at where this is going. When he discovered which Captain he'd be serving under, he made a few discreet enquiries so he'd know what to expect. So far, Kathryn Janeway has ran true to form. Relaxed, even sociable with regard to inter-crew relations. A little headstrong, but with the charm to make it work for her. She prefers to lead from the front and doesn't scare easily.

She half-smiles. "Nothing wrong with your perception then. If you're eager to throw yourself into harm's way though, you're welcome to join me."

"Then I'll go on ahead and have Team Bravo scout the area before you arrive." He gives her the ghost of a smile himself. "Just to make certain, Captain." He turns and heads off towards the woods.

Kathryn merely raises an eyebrow before following.

* * *

Donaldson groans as he comes to. He hates away missions, something always goes wrong during them. Pulling himself up, he twists his face with confusion as he takes in the scene before him. The entire clearing is indecisively flickering between reality and unreality, the effect not unlike a strobe light.

Getting to his feet, he gingerly steps over to the old man who is as still as the night, half propped up by the ruined system he became entangled in. Part of the man's face and chest are melted, small flames still licking the body, but it isn't the grisly sight of blood and bone that confronts him. Droplets from the chest cavity add to a metallic looking substance pooling on the ground. And behind the mess lies exposed micro-circuitry. Jesus, the old man was some kind of android. No wonder he was so quick.

Raye wanders unsteadily over, trying to get rid of the pinpricks of white dancing before her eyes. "Is he dead?"

Donaldson considers it. "Deader than duotronics."

Raye kneels down to check on the Chief, then after a few moments starts to take in her surroundings. She tries to see between the flickers, but nothing's very visible. "What do you suppose this place is? Some kind of simulation?"

"Well it sure ain't Kansas." Donaldson looks over the wrecked panel. The only activity on it is a small red light, blinking dimly. Acting on intuition, he presses it. The effect is instantaneous. The flickering stops and the entire clearing and everything in it vanishes, to be replaced by large gun-metal grey walls adorned by luminescent white strips. Some of the strips are darkened though, as if turned off or broken. The latter more likely given the strength of that burst. Turning, he looks at the opposite wall which still seems to show the illusion of a shaded wood. And from it emerge four figures, three people in Starfleet gold, the other with a maroon stripe across the shoulders.

"Hopper, sweep the room," the man in maroon orders.

One of the three men starts moving around the room, while the woman rushes to the two bodies, almost gagging at the injuries to the first until she realises the body embedded in the broken panel is machine-based. She looks down at the officer crouched next to the still form of Chief Rollins. "Gunn?"

Raye smiles up at her. "Hey, Jensen. Chief's got a real chicken-egg here, but I think he'll be fine. He's just unconscious."

Zane listens to her appraisal as he looks around the strange metallic room they've suddenly found themselves in. "Is this some kind of holodeck?" he asks, echoing Raye's earlier musing.

A wiry security officer stands where illusion meets reality, looking from one to the other. "We could be dealing with sectioned emitter grids relaying the same program in tandem. It'd be like knocking down the separating walls between two or more holodecks. The program would remain active even if one deck malfunctioned, you'd just lose the piece of environment that particular deck was projecting."

"Room is secure, Commander," Hopper calls over, finishing his quick sweep.

Zane taps his badge. "Cavit to Captain Janeway, the area is safe to enter."

"No ravenous bears or half-starved coyotes then," Kathryn jokes as she emerges from the trees and follows the others in examining the scene before her.

"Not this time," Zane informs her. "We appear to be inside a deactivated holo-environment. Lieutenant Rollins is unconscious, but not seriously injured."

Kathryn moves over to him and winces at the visible bump on his head before her eyes finally settle on the two officers Jeff took with him. Gunn rises to attention while Donaldson hangs back, seemingly trying to blend into the shadows. "I take it this is your work?"

"He's responsible, Captain," Raye responds quickly, looking back at Donaldson.

"Hey!" her partner exclaims, aggrieved. "You're the one that charged at the guy like a rhino on steroids."

"To disarm and disable him from further hostile action. Not to twat him into the holodeck controls and blow them up."

"Didn't look like you were doing much disarming before I stopped you from becoming Kung-Fu pate, Grasshopper."

Kathryn clears her throat loudly, stopping the verbal battle in its tracks. "I'm not apportioning blame here. On the contrary." She peers into the ruined body hanging out of a wrecked console. "An android with enhanced reflexes." She looks back at Donaldson. "You're lucky to have beaten him. Or better than basic training would usually equip you."

"Dumb luck sounds about right to me," Raye says after a pause, looking at Donaldson who just shrugs uncomfortably at the scrutiny.

Jensen has been tracing the room's perimeter as she feels for any join or indentation which would indicate a hard to see door. Nothing has turned up though. "There's no obvious exit, Captain."

"Somehow I didn't think it'd be that easy," Kathryn says distractedly, her mind ticking over the variables of this new conundrum.

"Perhaps this is a prison cell of some kind," Raye suggests.

"It's possible, but I doubt that anyone who'd want to imprison us would go to the trouble of creating a comfortable holo-environment," Zane answers.

"Perhaps we're not supposed to know we're prisoners, sir."

Donaldson looks pointedly at her. "Why?"

"Well if I knew that, I'd be on the other side of that wall," she says with more than an air of irritation and impatience.

"As you were, Lieutenant," Zane warns her.

Raye nods after a beat. "Aye, sir."

Kathryn looks back at them. "All questions about this room's purpose aside, we still need to find a way out of it. Now if we can't progress horizontally... how about vertically?" she suggests. Everyone follows her gaze to the ceiling, or rather where the ceiling would ordinarily be. It's rather like looking into a void. There doesn't seem to be anything obviously there.

She glances at the glowing white strips and tentatively touches them. They're slightly warm, but give off no adverse effect. Mentally measuring the space between each row, she lifts a foot onto the slim protrusion and pulls herself flat against the wall.

"Captain!" Zane starts, stepping forward.

"It's alright, Commander, I've done a little rock-climbing in my spare time. This face doesn't look especially difficult." The strips don't offer much grip, but Kathryn manages to use them effectively, her speed becoming more steady as she gets used to it. Around twenty feet up, she blinks as her surroundings suddenly change into a wide open area that gleams and sparkles like light refracting off crystal. Glancing down, she sees nothing but black. It's as if she exists as merely a decapitated head. Creepy, but interesting.

She ducks down, gripping the uppermost strip hard. Once beneath the darkness again, she hears a commotion from the floor. What's going on down there? "We're in luck. The void is another hologram," she calls down. "If we climb up, we can get out."

"Captain, I hope you realise the Commander thought you'd just had your head blasted off by something," Raye shouts up glibly.

"Sorry, I didn't know that would happen."

Zane sighs, staring up at her. The Captain's expression doesn't look particularly apologetic. In fact she has rather an impish smile on her face. If he had to guess, he'd say she's about to take another risk. And this time he isn't in any position to stop her.

"Commander, have the rest of the crew come to this position. I'll take two security people to scout above, then send word when I know it's safe for everyone to climb up. Volunteers?"

"Aye, sir," Hopper immediately pipes up.

"I hope you're not planning this expedition without me, Captain," Raye says as she nimbly pulls herself onto the nearest illuminated strip.

Kathryn grins. "Wouldn't dream of it, Lieutenant. I'll pull you over the top once you get up here." She glances back at the rest of her crew. "Don't go anywhere." With that her head disappears again, followed seconds later by the rest of her.

Donaldson looks skeptically into the void. "Where does she think we're going to go?"

Zane just stares at him, not sure whether to admonish him or agree wholeheartedly.


	10. A Dangerous Child

Kathryn narrows her eyes, trying to shield her vision from the glitter and glare of the cavernous crystalline room around her as she and Raye heave Ensign Hopper through the illusory field and onto hard floor.

"What have you done to my matrix?"

The three promptly whip around to face... a child. Long blonde hair cascades around her, but this is no innocent. She stares at them with hard, ice-blue eyes as if daring them to challenge her. Kathryn feels unnerved by the expression. It's something you shouldn't see on a girl this young looking. Brief sparks of electricity seem to leap from the girl's hand which seems poised to strike out without notice. It's clear she isn't what she appears to be. "At ease," the Captain orders, seeing both Raye and Hopper tense for action.

Suspiria eyes them carefully as they stand down, the sparks fading to nothing. Her expression is unchanged though and seems to add an air of undisguised disdain to itself. "You humans are a troublesome species. You interfere with things that don't concern you."

Kathryn is careful to keep her demeanor non-threatening. "We've been brought here against our will. All we want is to collect our missing crew and get back to our ship."

"What _crew_ you have are already with you. I see no reason for your continued presence."

"I have over sixty men and women missing," Kathryn counters carefully. "I've been informed that they might actually be dead, although I'm naturally hoping that isn't the case. Do you know anything about this, Ms..."

"If your crew's physiology is not sturdy enough to survive transit, that is not my problem," she answers, ignoring Kathryn's fishing. "I repeat, you have all of your crew, minus the three I need for my experiments. They may be returned in due course. Now leave my array, before my gratitude runs out."

The danger in her tone is plain enough, but the girl's admission coupled with her chillingly casual dismissal flares a streak of indignation in Kathryn. "That's not good enough. What right do you have to kidnap people and treat them like guinea pigs?"

"The Vulcan race have an interesting saying that I find to be apt in this case. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Your wishes are irrelevant compared to the needs of an entire civilisation."

Kathryn doesn't even have time to question what she means by this though. During the conversation, Ensign Hopper had been slowly moving around as if taking the opportunity to explore the room. Having halved the distance between himself and the childlike being, he takes the element of surprise and springs at her like a tiger. Suspiria's reflexes are more than up to the task though. Calmly throwing out her hand, an arc of electricity hits the Ensign and throws him back several feet.

Raye rushes to his side and sees a blackened hole burned through the chest of his uniform. She automatically starts to take the pulse of the unmoving officer and is relieved to find one. Hopper emits a low moan, hovering between awareness and the bliss of unconsciousness.

"I do not appreciate threats upon my person," Suspiria snaps, swinging her hand around, tendrils of energy circling it. "Your crewman will live, but let that be your last lesson. Go, now!"

"We'd love to," Raye growls at her in an equally hard tone, "but we can't. The Captain told you we were brought here against our will. We've got no way of getting back to our ship."

"She's right," Kathryn confirms, grinding out a diplomatic tone again. "We didn't even realise we were in a holo-environment until we saw the exposed grid."

"Damage which you caused."

"Three of my crew were attacked by an android inside. The damage was done in the course of defending themselves."

"I tire of this... and of you."

Kathryn and Raye tense, ready to dive out of the way at the first sign of attack. Something unexpected though passes over the girl's face. Doubt. Her gaze seem to pass straight through them, then she lowers her hand and turns away, moving to a short column embedded with coloured rocks, waving her hands over them in a sequence. "Unit One was supposed to facilitate your departure in my absence," she says eventually, her demeanor changed completely to a detached businesslike manner. "He was instructed not to resort to violence unless such was committed against him."

Kathryn shares a look of confusion with Raye. "My crew are trained to respond likewise."

Suspiria tilts her head slightly. "Regardless of that, your assertion appears to fit the facts as they stand. You could not depart as your vessel has left the confines of my net."

Hope flares. Could this being have missed someone? Someone who took the ship to get help?

"There was a transfer of personnel between the small vessel and your own," Suspiria adds a few seconds later. She turns back to face the Captain, no sign of her previous ire evident. "Your vessel has been taken by the others from your sector of space."

Kathryn blinks bewilderedly. "What?"

A shining holographic display appears in mid-air in front of her showing a recording of a much smaller vessel pulling in to dock with the Voyager. The colour drains from her face as she recognises it. Slowly, she raises her hand and taps her commbadge. "Janeway to Cavit... Janeway to Commander Cavit, respond."

"They cannot hear you. The damage to my matrix has resulted in an electromagnetic leak which is dampening communications."

Kathryn's eyes flick to her. "Can you shut down your matrix?"

"You wish to speak with your crew?"

"Yes!"

Suspiria briefly considers it. This species is destructive and far too meddlesome for their own good, but they _have_ been able to assist in her experiments. For that alone, she decides to be co-operative. As she slices through the air over a blue rock, the holofield completely disappears, including the false floor. Below is a large alcove cast in shadows. And within, the entirety of the surviving USS Voyager's crew, most of them now very confused.

Kathryn runs through her mind, searching for a plan. "Is the Liberty still inside your net?"

"Liberty?"

"The ship the others from our sector of space boarded from."

"Yes," comes the girl's unearthly voice. She doesn't even have to check for this information.

"Will you let us use it to get our own ship back?"

Suspiria doesn't need to think about it. Whatever these beings want to do with their vessels is their business. As long as they leave the array and don't interfere with her experiments. "It is yours."

Kathryn nods, then approaches the edge of the alcove, lowering herself to one knee. "Everyone, may I have your attention," she speaks loudly. "It seems that the Voyager has been stolen by the Maquis." Gasps and murmurs of disquiet ripple through the crew, but they quickly silence for their Captain to continue. "Fortunately the Maquis abandoned their own ship. I intend to use it to recover the Voyager."

She glimpses Jeff standing near her First Officer, obviously having come around in the last several minutes. "Commander Cavit, Lieutenant Rollins and Lieutenant Carey, if you'll come up to ground level. I'd like your assistance in choosing the crew I need for this mission." She turns back to the girl. "I'd also like to request the return of any equipment my crew possessed when they arrived here."

Suspiria stares unblinking at the woman, then moves to a wall panel which opens up to reveal trays of standard issue tricorders and phasers. "Your handheld technology was of no great interest to me. Is that all?"

"Yes, thank you."

The girl glances at the three other beings making their way over the top of the alcove, then vanishes in a flame of twinkling light, leaving Kathryn to exhale in relief. Hopper's stunning notwithstanding, that encounter could have gone a lot worse than it did.

* * *

For almost two days, Tuvok and Vorik have been moving through the ductworks of the subterranean city, searching for T'Prena. They once briefly had her in their sights, however a transporter beamed her away and they lost their chance. Their luck changes though as they come across a quiet maintenance shop. They'd managed to retrieve their phasers, intact but drained. Now here's their chance to make them operational again. Working phasers would assist their defense much more than hand to hand combat and nerve pinches. Quickly and efficiently they strip the weapons down, adapting the power packs to absorb current from the Ocampan's more primitive electrical supply system rather than the electro-plasma systems favoured by the major powers of the Alpha and Beta Quadrants. The only downside is that they'll take over an hour to fully charge, four times the usual charge time.

Tiredness passes over the younger Vulcan's face as they finish. Neither of them have slept since waking in the reproductive centre, due to the constant pressure of maintaining mental shields to avoid being pinpointed by the telepathic security personnel. Both of them though are aware that sleep will have to come soon, lest they pass out from fatigue and become easily traceable. Setting off again, they eventually uncover an old looking stairwell disappearing up into the darkness. Logic requires that if they cannot find T'Prena by tonight, they must seek secured shelter. Vorik looks at Tuvok and the elder Vulcan nods.

* * *

The command group wait patiently to hear back from Lieutenant Carey. He and a handful of engineers had transported over to the Liberty over half an hour ago to assess the damage to the ship's key systems. After the holo-environment's termination, a second headcount hadn't revealed many more people than Kathryn already knew about. It's now looking uncomfortably clear that her missing crew are still aboard the Voyager. In what state doesn't bear thinking about. She has to recover the ship somehow.

Kathryn sighs and cradles her head, arising concern in Jeff. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Jeff," she lies, looking across to him. "It's probably just caffeine withdrawal."

Jeff nods after a long moment. "A cup would do me some good right about now too." He glances over to the remaining member of the trio. "How about you, Commander?"

Zane looks up from picking at a loose thread on his uniform. "Sorry, I can't stand the stuff. Too bitter. I'm a tea drinker."

Jeff stares at him. _He doesn't like coffee? What kind of Starfleet officer is he?_ Kathryn just smiles, knowing what's going through his head.

Zane sees the security chief's expression and furrows his brow. "What?"

Mercifully though, Carey reports in before Jeff can offer comment. "Carey to Janeway."

Kathryn taps her commbadge. "Janeway here. What's the verdict, Mr Carey?"

A sigh is heard over the line. "Captain, you're not going to like this, but the ship is shot to hell. The shields are almost non-existent, EPS grid is one short-circuit away from complete burnout, the weapons are in pieces and don't even get me started on the warp drive. It'll probably collapse the first time we try to use it. There's evidence of jury-rigging in a lot of places, but nothing I recognise as standard replacements."

Her face falls again, any trace of humour that might have been on it sadly gone. "If I had another choice Mr Carey, I'd give it to you, believe me. Is there anything working the way it should?"

There's a brief pause. "Well... the impulse engines seem just about usable and life support is holding up. Given what we intend to do with this crate though, it still needs major repairs. We're looking at around three days to get everything nominally operational. That's with all my teams working flat out."

"That's not an option," Kathryn states flatly, "the Voyager will be long gone by then. What if we get the warp drive stable, then repair the rest on the fly?"

"We'd need to bring a lot of engineers with us then. At least ten to fifteen."

Kathryn looks pained. That would be almost half their crew space gone in one fell swoop. She sighs. "Very well Mr Carey. Work on those engines and keep us informed of your progress. I want the Liberty ready to leave as soon as possible. Janeway out." She looks over to her security chief. "Now all we need are the-"

She's cut off as Lieutenant Darcy steps into the crystalline room and stands crisply to attention. She pulls a handful of PADDs from her inside jacket pocket and hands them over. "Lieutenant Rollins told me you wanted these, Captain."

"That was quick," Kathryn tells her, mildly impressed.

"Darcy is a very efficient officer," Jeff says, giving her a fleeting half-smile.

Kathryn nods, indicating that she can go, then looks up at her two senior officers. "Let's get started then."

* * *

Harry Kim awakes to an amber world, the air filled with the stench of seared sand and dust. He coughs, then turns his head wildly, suddenly frightened that this illness has affected his sight. He's blind! He rolls onto his back, then sighs in relief as he sees comforting stars wink into his vision, his retinas quickly growing used to the darkness. It's just night.

Wait a minute!

"How are you feeling, Ensign?"

Harry's head quickly turns to the voice, identifying the silhouette of the Vulcan Ensign he's starting to become familiar with. "Where are we?" His voice cracks a little due to the dryness of the air he's been breathing.

"On the surface. I was able to get us both to a transporter platform of some description without being intercepted." Her voice is cool, calm and logical as is the norm for her species.

Harry looks up to the sky again and across the landscape. No moon... and what looks like mountains in the far distance, preceded by an endless stretch of sand dunes. They might be free, but as far as he can see they're not much better off.

When she doesn't receive an answer to her first question, T'Prena moves to feel his brow, but Harry backs away reflexively. "Don't! I might be contagious."

She raises one elegant eyebrow. "Highly improbable. We have been in each other's company for some time now. Given the speed of your sickness, if I were susceptible I would have contracted symptoms to confirm that theory. I have not. Therefore I conclude that I am immune." Harry thinks about that as she places her hand on his forehead. "In any event, it appears that the fever has broken. You are still warm to the touch, but not unnaturally so."

"That's good to know," Harry murmurs. "Do you know how long we've been out here?"

She looks carefully at the sky. "I would say that we have been in this desert for approximately two point four hours," she says before helping him to his feet.

Harry looks puzzled. "How can you be so..." He reconsiders the question though before he's finished asking it. "Never mind." She's Vulcan, they know almost everything. "Alright, how about we try and find some water before the sun comes up? There has to be an oasis around here somewhere."

T'Prena tilts her head. It is a faulty assumption, but not one she informs the young human about, sensing that he would not appreciate the correction. Regardless of the motivation, leaving here is still the best course of action. Allowing him to take the lead, T'Prena sets off at a moderate pace. Before too long though, she is forced to call ahead. "Ensign Kim!"

He turns around, having extended some distance between them. "What?"

"If I may make a suggestion? Your current pace will undoubtedly tire you before you have achieved any significant distance. Perhaps your efforts will last longer if you follow my lead."

Harry grumbles to himself as he waits for T'Prena to catch up. Like he mused earlier, she's Vulcan.

* * *

Her face is expressionless on the surface, but inside Suspiria is growing impatient as her transporter is used like a taxi service, ferrying people to and from the damaged ship. Occasionally she watches these creatures go about their business, then wanders off wishing they were gone already. She almost wishes she'd never ensnared them, but at least they will prove useful in the second experiment. True, none of them have the genetic requirements for a merging with the Ocampa, but her most recent tests regarding the solar radiation problem have yielded some interesting results and she's curious to see how these species' will handle the effects. Maybe she can solve both problems together?

Suspiria paces the reflecting metal floor and on impulse slices her hand through the air, causing a disorientated Captain Janeway to appear in front of her. "I am tiring of your continued presence. Have you made your 'arrangements'?" As far as Suspiria is concerned, she's been the model of restraint.

"Very nearly," Kathryn says as she determines up from down within the pit of her stomach. "I would like to ask another favour though. My crew haven't eaten for almost a day that we know of, maybe more. Any food that you can give us would be graciously appreciated."

Suspiria holds onto her temper. "Your technological needs are being met. That is enough."

"Look, I don't mean for us to overstay our welcome, but some sustenance would go a long way to pacifying the crew. I'm sure you've noticed their 'restlessness'."

"It is but for my generosity that you have a chance of pursuing your vessel thieves at all, Captain Janeway. Your people have been highly disruptive."

Kathryn bites her tongue. Belligerence will only inflame this being. She lowers her gaze submissively. "I offer you my genuine apologies for our conduct. But this kindness would benefit yourself as well as us. My crew will be able to work faster when properly nourished."

Suspiria looks at her through narrowed eyes, then grudgingly sweeps out a hand, a cargo bin of bread and fruit appearing in the middle of the room, along with a tank of water. The crew look on in surprise at the sudden materialization.

"Our gracious host has provided for our needs once more," Kathryn calls out to them.

"A smaller amount has been supplied to your people aboard the vessel. With this nourishment, how long will it take?" Suspiria demands.

Kathryn meets her eyes levelly. "We'll be flight ready in three of our hours."

"Very well. Go to your crew, and to your food. I am leaving. I find the ingestion of biomatter by ephemerals... distasteful."

Suspiria does her by now familiar disappearing trick and Kathryn looks back at the food. She doesn't need a second invitation.

On the other side of the room, Donaldson pulls the peel off an orange and devours a segment hungrily. He turns to Raye who's trying to break open a coconut with the butt of her phaser. She growls in frustration and wallops the shell a few more times, glaring at him when he starts laughing. "Why don't you just have an apple?" he suggests. "They're nice."

"I don't want an apple," she explains slowly, thumping the coconut as hard as she can. "I want a coconut. I like the pulpy bit, I like the milk, I like everything about this fruit except..." She tries stamping on it to no avail. "Except this bloody shell," she finishes, finally giving up and staring at it. After a moment though, an idea strikes her. She could use a phaser beam on low power to burn away the shell. Smiling triumphantly, she pulls her phaser out and takes aim.

"DON'T DO THAT!" Donaldson cries out.

"I'm a qualified Security officer, Donaldson, I think I can handle it."

"But do you have any idea what a type two phaser on level three does to a coconut when fired from a range of one and a half metres?"

She lowers her arm, looking curiously at him. "No, do you?"

Donaldson shakes his head. "I'm in no rush to find out though."

Kathryn, now sitting near the edge of the alcove, notices the fruit debate unfolding, but keeps tactfully silent as Raye shrugs and readies her phaser again. _Well, that's one way to let off a little stress._

The milk inside boils as the beam hits it and the shell begins to expand, the pressure mounting until... SPLAT! The coconut explodes, showering Raye and several other innocent bystanders with white fruit. Donaldson roars with laughter, spraying orange pulp around him. A disgusted looking Raye wipes herself down and grabs an apple from her mound of fruit, viciously tearing a lump from it. "The apples are nice," she mumbles with her mouth full.

"Told you," Donaldson says smugly. Raye gives him the evil eye, at that moment contemplating at least eight ways to kill him, two of them involving fruit.

Kathryn hides an involuntary laugh by burying her teeth into a peach. She spares the coconut soaked 'victims' a direct glance, even though they look her way expecting her to react somehow to their annoyance. _Live and learn they say_. Chuckling, she offers them a cluster of bananas in compensation, but gets no takers.

* * *

Even Tuvok is now showing the strain from lack of sleep. Fortunately their salvation lies in front of them, diffused sunlight streaming through a narrow opening in the rock face which had grown from a single point of light only an hour earlier. Unfortunately when they reach it, the opening is just tantalisingly too narrow for either Vulcan to fit through. Undeterred though, both Tuvok and Vorik start clearing rubble to make it wider and eventually the opening relents. Entering the open cavern beyond, Vorik looks both ways, then pauses.

"What is wrong, Ensign?" Tuvok enquires as he pushes his larger frame through. As he brushes the rock dust from his clothes though, his colleague's reluctance to move is belatedly identified.

"Borg!" Vorik states.

The relentless cybernetic race had threatened the survival of the entire Federation. One cube had all but wiped out Starfleet's Internal Defence Fleet. And here they were. Each drone was constructing what appeared to be a regeneration chamber into both walls of the cavern. It was this work which had likely precipitated the rockfall that created the original opening.

"So long as we do not threaten them, reports indicate they will ignore us," Tuvok states for Vorik's benefit. It appears that the young officer does not yet have a complete hold on his emotions.

"I would prefer to place a good distance between ourselves and these drones before we rest again," Vorik says.

"Agreed, Ensign. Let us proceed."

Tuvok steps out boldly and acts as if he belongs strolling in the midst of the Collective. Vorik naturally follows his lead, although with faint signs of trepidation. Within moments though, four drones stop what they're doing and close in, restraining them effectively.

"It would appear that the reports on Borg behavior are out-of-date," Vorik comments.

"Indeed!" Tuvok replies drily, his eyebrow raised. "This type of behaviour has been noted on only one prior occasion. When the android Lore discovered a cube severed from the rest of the Collective."

Another drone approaches, his eyepiece whirring as it scans both of them. "We are Fifth of Twelve. You are species 3259, Vulcan. State your designations!"

Tuvok stares impassively at him. "I am Tuvok, this is Vorik," he says, gesturing to his companion. "We were brought to this world against our will and will depart peacefully. We are of no threat to you."

"This planet's environment is hostile to our cybernetic implants. We need shelter and technology to re-establish our link with the collective. You will assist us." Fifth of Twelve speaks as if he's merely instructing another couple of drones.

"We have no technology that would be useful to you," Vorik comments.

"Irrelevant. You will assist us, resistance is futile!" Fifth of Twelve turns his head in the slightest manner to regard Vorik. "You will join our repairs of the remaining regeneration chambers. If you prove of no use as individuals, then you will be assimilated." He turns to the other drones. "Take them to the encampment and have them start on chambers twenty and twenty-one."

With the order, the two holding Tuvok and Vorik lead them away out of the cavern and down a path towards what appears to be a makeshift settlement. Once there, the Vulcans witness an interesting sight. The drones number perhaps thirty, but while half of them are busy working, the others are engaging in non-productive pursuits. Fifth of Twelve stops as he enters the area and with a quick scan determines that two more drones have stopped working and have joined those that are re-embracing their individuality. With a look that could almost be called disgust, he walks away.


	11. Taking Liberty

The recreation room on the lower deck of the Maquis Raider is a little crowded as security personnel kill time before finding out whether they're going to be staying on this crate or not. A soft cough gains one officer's attention and within seconds, everyone is at attention.

"Here's the news I'm sure you've all been waiting for," Jeff says wryly. "The personnel listing for the Liberty operation. Due to the Captain's special requirements, we only had the opportunity to select eight of you. So if your name isn't called out, it's no slight against your abilities. Darcy?"

Darcy stands next to the Chief, raising the well-used PADD in her hand to comfortable reading level. "Rodriguez, Leslie."

The formerly dazed blonde from the Voyager's Bridge saunters smugly over with a smirk.

"Foster, David."

A cold, dark skinned man with a beard and piercing eyes.

"Lestaki, Skazz."

A clean-cut Bolian hefting a rifle. Where he got it, no-one is quite sure at the moment.

"D'nighr, Gertand."

A heavily muscled, green-skinned alien lumbers over proudly.

"Weizbaski, Philip."

A well-built man with a perpetual scowl and five o'clock shadow.

"Munro, Alexandra."

The redhead looks a little surprised, but steps forward.

"Gunn, Raye."

There's a few sniggers as some of the crewmen put her name together, but Jeff's withering stare silences them.

"Well it's been nice, Gunn," Donaldson tells her as he finishes off another orange, "but since I have the aptitude of a five year old and no redeeming merit, I'll see you when you get back." He gives her a genuine smile. "It's a shame really, because I was growing quite fond of-"

"Donaldson, Samuel."

Sam almost chokes. As the others file away leaving the chosen few behind, he approaches his commanding officer. "Why me, sir?" Jeff ignores him, ordering the team to line-up. "Please sir, why me?" he pleads.

"Get into line, Donaldson," Jeff tells him. Raye pretends not to know him.

"Are you avoiding my question, sir?" he badgers. "Because-"

"You want to know? Fine!" Jeff snaps. "These officers," he gestures to the others, "are here because they are professional, efficient and cool under pressure. You are loud, unprofessional and whiny. You have the aptitude of a grape and I'm surprised you learned to tie your shoes, let alone make it through security training. You want to know why you're here? Because you have an accuracy rating of 90% in a realtime combat environment. I only rate 77% and no-one else here is above 74." The other officers look at Sam in a mixture of awe and utter disbelief. All except Raye who, not for the first time, is staring curiously at him. "There's your reason, Donaldson. Now get in line," Jeff orders briskly, making it clear he's not in the mood for any more wheedling. Sam blinks, going rapidly white, but he complies a second later, moving back next to Raye.

"You didn't tell me you were that good," Raye whispers to him while Jeff reads out the mission profile.

Sam shrugs. "It never came up."

"Well, now I know why they didn't kick you out. You're a prodigy." She grins at him. "An honest to God prodigy. Nice to have met you."

"It's not all it's cracked up to be. Trust me," he replies glumly.

"Does everyone understand?" Jeff asks, giving a pointed look at Sam and Raye as he does so.

"Yes, sir!" everyone replies, more or less in unison.

Jeff nods after a moment, then turns to the Captain who is standing just outside the door. "Security team ready for action, Captain."

Kathryn nods, smiling. "Take your positions. We leave in ten." As the team split-up, she makes her way to the rear of the ship to make some last minute confirmations.

* * *

A dim light suddenly illuminates the blackness of space, growing brighter as a small vessel slowly comes back to life, readying itself for perhaps one last hurrah. Inside, various people go about their business with speed but precision, most of them wearing a mustard stripe across their shoulders.

Kathryn hurries up the winding metal stairs and enters the cockpit, making her way to the nearest screen. Jeff is already at the tactical board, a young blonde - Rachel Jenkins - in the pilot's chair, and Sonia Summers at the engineering panel. It's a little cramped in here, but she gets a sense of readiness and action that she wouldn't get on an active Starfleet vessel.

After a few moments of checking status readouts, she toggles a switch. "All hands, this is the Captain. Man your stations, we have one minute to launch." Another adjustment and she speaks again. "Engineering, fire up aft thrusters and prepare to engage impulse. We've got ourselves a starship to recover." In the back of her mind, Kathryn is already making plans to sweep the nearest planetary bodies for lifesigns while they cast about for the Voyager's escape trail. She mentally ticks down the seconds and on precisely zero, the ship lurches forward.

"Sorry Captain, the inertial dampers are a bit sluggish," Sonia reports.

"That's fine, Crewman. We should probably consider it a miracle of engineering that she's moving at all." Sonia smiles at that as the ship starts to distance itself from the floating dead shells it had so narrowly escaped joining.

"Alright Mr Carey, maximum sustainable speed please," Kathryn requests as the ship reaches the required range.

"Aye Captain," Joe's voice crackles over the intercom, "warp one coming up." The engines begin to power up, then just as suddenly stall and die.

"Mr Carey," Kathryn starts.

"I didn't do that, Captain," the engineer tells her. "Everything checks out down here, the engines should be working fine."

A flash behind her causes Kathryn to whip round, momentarily shielding her eyes from the glare. When her vision clears, she sees tendrils of power circling around a stern looking Suspiria. They're larger than any she's seen on the entity so far.

"You tried to remove him," the girl accuses. "I won't let you do that." A tendril shoots down, disappearing through the deck plating.

Janeway is taken aback. What is she talking about? "I don't understand-"

"Captain," Raye's voice interrupts over the intercom, "Ensign Donaldson is gone. One minute we were talking, the next... he just disappeared."

Kathryn looks at the floor, then back to the girl. Reaching behind herself, she flicks the the transmission switch again. "Acknowledged, Lieutenant. I think I know why. Will explain later, Janeway out." Jeff catches her eye, but she shoots him a negative. "Why have you taken Ensign Donaldson?" she asks the being.

"He will make reparation for the damage he has done." Suspiria waves her hand and another figure appears in the cockpit. It's Lieutenant Darcy, her uniform jacket tied around her waist. She looks around and her mouth drops open slightly. "To replace your crewman," Suspiria states curtly. She then vanishes without another word, the engines coming back online and propelling the ship into warp before Kathryn can even finish protesting.

Darcy finally finds her voice. "I missed something important, didn't I."

As the Liberty disappears into warp, the engines coming back online as soon as Suspriria left, the childlike entity strolls into the crystalline room, occupied by the remainder of the Voyager's crew. _Solar radiation experiment number one-zero-one-three initiated_. With a dismissing wave of her hand, everyone flashes into now familiar sparkles.

And on the heat-blazed desert surface of an unidentified world, fifty-eight beings suddenly appear as if from nowhere.

* * *

Kathryn sits at the tiny ops console reviewing the current situation report. There's no ready room on a ship this size. If she wants privacy, she'd have to use her cabin and that pokey cupboard doesn't hold much attraction for her. _Oh well, you make do with what you have_, she thinks. _If the Maquis can work like this, so can I_.

Ensign Jenkins had located the Voyager's ion trail without much trouble. Apparently her hijackers are a little rusty with masking their trail. A small portion of verteron particles are sweeping through the battered lateral sensor arrays, dusting the way like so many powdered fingerprints, towards a nondescript planet about three hours away at current speed.

She wonders whether the Maquis are really hoping to escape from justice here in the Delta Quadrant. Seventy thousand light years at the drop of a hat. She'd been astounded when Jeff had told her where they are and just hopes that Suspiria has enough goodwill to send them back once they return. She isn't at all confident that the entity will remain the _gracious hostess _for much longer. And what did she mean by "reparation" when she spirited Ensign Donaldson away? Kathryn winces as the thought occurs that he could be used in more of her experiments, but with her obvious abilities there wasn't a lot any of them could have done. One wrong move against her and they could all be stranded in the middle of nowhere. And that's looking on the bright side.

Kathryn sighs as her console runs through its functions with all the speed of treacle dripping from an overturned spoon. If they do run into anything bad, there's only Ensign Tigan's limited medical skills to rely on. For that reason she's made sure everyone knows where the emergency medkits are. And if that isn't bad enough, their commbadges are almost running on empty, like their power cells have been heavily drained. Her eyes wander over to the mug resting on the locked-off controls. Well, at least this wreck has a store of coffee.

* * *

Commander Cavit sits in the shade of a rock overhang as his crew find other shelter from the sun wherever they can. The air is dry, the ground baked and not a drop of water can be seen. He removes his uniform jacket and sighs as his bare arms are cooled by the wind. Not that there's actually any real wind, just a faint breeze nearly as hot as the still air. _It's like breathing in a furnace_, he thinks wearily.

He looks around as he hears the sound of approaching footsteps and sees the imposing form of Gorn officer, Lieutenant Scalie. It's worth noting that Scalie is not his actual last name. It's more a series of growls which are rather difficult to write on an application form. When Scalie had applied to the Academy, he'd tried to put down a name that he felt surmised what it was to be Gorn. In a way he succeeded. And it stands as a sort of monument to the pride that the Gorn feel for their lizard roots, not to mention their lack of imagination, that of the twenty-two Gorns in Starfleet, twenty-one are called Scalie. The last one called herself Lizzie.

Scalie snaps a crisp salute and hands the Executive Officer a dusty PADD. "Headcount complete, sir," he growls. "Everyone is accounted for, except Lieutenant Darcy."

"Sure you haven't missed her?" Zane asks. "The heat could've put you off."

Scalie laughs. The sound isn't very pleasant, giving the impression of a fat man choking on sand. "I assure you the heat does not bother me. My body releases a liquid layer which keeps me cool."

Sure enough Zane can see the shimmering on Scalie's scales. _And here's me sweating like a pig and still roasting alive_. "Has everyone not on assignment found shelter?"

Scalie nods. "Almost, Commander."

"Then go tell them to stay in there at all times and minimise activity. We don't know when we'll find provisions." Scalie nods again and heads off. Zane briefly glances at the list of names on the PADD he'd been given. It matches who the Captain left him with, with the one exception Scalie informed him of. Why would Suspiria want Darcy? _Maybe we just hadn't found her yet_.

He gazes at the harsh landscape - rocks, sand, dirt, even more rocks. Odd tufts of phenomenally hardened vegetation are evident, but it doesn't look like they're going to be edible, not even to a Gorn. Zane stretches out and lies down in the comparative coolness of the shade. He's been awake for over a full day and deserves a siesta in his opinion.

Far out near the horizon, there's a pinprick of reflected light like glinting metal, but only for an instant.

* * *

None of the security team on the Liberty are what you'd call religious, but somehow that's the subject their latest debate has randomly ended up on, Foster now defending an idle comparison from two know-it-alls.

"Ambrosia isn't the food of the gods, that's golden apples," argues Weizbaski.

"It's ambrosia, I'm telling you."

"I thought it was virgin flesh?" D'nighr chips in.

Weizbaski stares at him. "That's your planet's underworld, D'nighr. It's definitely apples."

"Suspiria isn't a god anyway," Leslie scowls.

"So? Who's to say she hasn't got a bit of ambrosia knocking about the place? It's amazing some of the things you can pick up over the millennia."

"Millennia?" Weizbaski scoffs. "She looks barely twelve."

"Have you looked into her eyes? Whatever she is, she ain't no twelve year old. More like twelve-thousand."

Shaking her head slightly, but with a smile, Darcy moves across the room to where Raye has extradited herself. "Don't get intimidated."

Raye turns her head to the voice. "Huh?"

"Some of them have served a long time together on one ship or another," she continues. "They butt heads once in a while, usually over something stupid, then slap each other on the back afterwards."

Raye nods non-committingly. Darcy has noticed her quietness and kneels down next to her. "Anything wrong?"

"Nothing... much. I'm just a little concerned about Donaldson." Raye sees the expression that's prompted and sighs. "Yeah, okay, he's annoying and clumsy and an idiot at times, but... he's easy to like. I know I rag on him a bit, but I don't mean it... well, not for long anyway."

"When did you meet?" Darcy enquires.

"On DS9 before the launch. A Ferengi was trying to hustle him over the price of some lobi crystals."

Darcy raises an eyebrow. "Didn't anyone warn him about Ferengi at the Academy?"

Raye smiles. "Funnily enough, he was doing alright. Though they twisted each other into so many knots by the finish, I don't think either of them remembered what they arguing about in the first place."

Darcy wonders at that. She didn't think Donaldson had the nous to take on a Ferengi at his own game. Maybe he has hidden talents? Very hidden. "If you like him, you're the only one here who does," she admits. "To be fair, most of us don't know him, but Teague from Ops served with him on Espair Station and they're not exactly on the best of terms."

"Why?" Raye asks, unable to help herself. As much as he irritates the living crap out of her sometimes, she's curious about him. Just every so often she sees a glimpse of something which doesn't seem to match the image he projects.

"You're best off asking her when we get back," Darcy tells her with an uncomfortable shrug. "I might keep my ear to the ground, but I'm not one to spread unconfirmed gossip."

"Well I hope he's okay anyway," Raye quietly replies. Darcy just nods before getting back up.

Raye idly glances back to the others. Foster, Weizbaski and Lestaki now appear to be playing a hand of poker while D'nighr holds the struggling Rodriguez upside down by her feet. She looks quizzically at them. Maybe this is why she doesn't completely pigeonhole Donaldson the same way everyone else does. In a way, they're both outsiders.

* * *

A lone figure strides across the desert sand, under the intense heat of the midday sun. Sweat pours from his face and dust cakes his clothes. He silently climbs across rocks and over boulders, making his way towards some unseen goal. "I hate my life," he mutters. "I hate the heat, I hate sand, I hate rocks... and I hate little kids who turn out to be evil mad scientists with lightning fetishes. Never thought I'd have a reason to say that, but it's true. Well I'll show her. I'll get off this orange dustball or my name isn't Samuel Aaron Donaldson."

He nods in confirmation, feeling in the right frame of mind now. Sitting down on a medium-sized boulder he attempts to formulate a plan. That is until the boulder lurches backwards. Sam tips over and rolls down the sand dune behind him, hitting several large rocks on the way down. After a few bone jarring moments he finally comes to a stop at the foot of the dune... just nicely in time for the boulder he sat on to land on his chest with a sickening crack.

Sam manages with some effort to push it off himself, but when he tries to rise, a sharp pain drills through him. You know on second thoughts, lying where he is sounds like a fantastic idea. Breathing raggedly, he pulls his shirt up and feels around. At least one of his ribs feels broken, his ankle is most certainly sprained, his left arm hurts like hell and he's bitten his tongue. He spits blood into the dust. "Well... on the plus side, it can't get any worse." An ominous crunch of feet a few metres away though proves just how silly an idea that is. Reconsidering that perhaps lying here isn't the best thing to do after all, Sam climbs shakily to his feet, his teeth gritted in pain, and faces the newcomer.

A Borg drone stands there, staring intently at him. It raises its arm, complete with what appears to be a welding claw and starts walking forward. Sam fearfully backs away, step for step, grabbing a stray stone and hurling it at the drone. It clatters harmlessly off its armour. He searches for a larger, more pointier rock and throws that instead. The drone is barely aware of it though as the rock smacks into its chest. Deep within Sam's brain, his common sense screams at him to use the phaser he has. His instincts, having exhausted their options with stone and backup large pointy stone, decide it's worth a try. He draws his phaser and throws it as hard as he can. It has about as much effect as the stones.

The drone is now only two metres away. Sam turns to run, but his legs don't respond too well. Stumbling, he collapses to the ground and finally passes out. As it reaches him, the drone stops, looks at Sam's prone form, then picks him up. Throwing the man's limp body over his shoulder, the drone continues to walk.

* * *

Harry stumbles yet again as he and T'Prena make their way through the desert. Their journey hadn't gone so bad while the sun was down, but now that it was up? While their white tunics reflect the heat rather than absorb it, the effect is nowhere near enough to help.

"Perhaps you should rest, Ensign," T'Prena suggests for what seems like the millionth time that hour.

"I'm fine! Just keep looking for that water," he tells her with some venom.

The Vulcan scientist refuses to be emotionally burned. "Your response suggests that you should minimize your activities to conserve water loss. Bluntness in humans often typifies-"

"Shhh!" Harry cuts in. "Smell that?"

T'Prena raises an eyebrow at the non-sequitur. "I detect no specifically different odour from that typical of a desert env-"

"I'm telling you I smell something." Harry can see T'Prena's nostrils working as she tilts her head. If he was in a better mood, he would've laughed at the sight. "It's tobacco! I don't believe it... yeah, pipe smoke... definitely!" He straightens up, the surge of hope giving him a second wind. "Come on," he gestures to his companion, "if there's pipe smoke, there must be someone smoking it."

T'Prena can't fault the Ensign's logic and joins his new pace, now able to faintly pick up smoke on the barely present wind. Though how the Ensign can specifically identify the nature of it is confusing. She wasn't aware that humans have such a well developed olfactory system.

Suddenly Harry flattens to the ground. "Down!" T'Prena is looking downright quizzical now, but crouches nevertheless. "I just saw a glint out there. It was metal."

"Ensign, I don't follow you."

"Metal may mean weapons," Harry told her impatiently.

"The presence of metal could be indicative of any number of things," T'Prena states. "Until we can make a better observation, I suggest refraining from drawing any such conclusions." Privately she wonders if the Ensign is starting to suffer from heatstroke. Delirium _is _a symptom of the condition.

"Oh forget it!" Harry scrambles away, moving quickly to a specific point slightly north-west of their current direction. T'Prena moves at her regular pace and as she approaches him, she sees him looking over something in his hands. "I told you I saw metal," he says triumphantly as she reaches him, holding up a device. "Looks like a communicator of some kind. A little battered, but maybe we can use it."

T'Prena examines the device as Harry turns it over. "Perhaps," she admits. "However it does not look like any communicator I have seen."

"Of course it wouldn't," Harry scoffs as he opens the back and peers inside. "It's a kitbash."

T'Prena tilts her head. "Kit bash?"

"It's been put together by cannibalising parts from other devices," he explains as if it's obvious. "Now if I can get this to work, we can contact someone."

T'Prena looks around them. "Who would you suggest we contact?"

Harry ignores her as he starts to poke around inside it. If she can't think positively, that's her problem.

"If I may?"

Harry turns his head and sees the Vulcan holding out her hand. "I thought you science types didn't like getting your hands dirty. What makes you think you're in a better position to fix it?"

"Because I have this, Ensign. From somewhere underneath her tunic, T'Prena reveals a standard-issue tricorder and opens it.

Harry stares at her open-mouthed as she takes the communicator and proceeds to scan it. "Wait! How long have you had that?"

T'Prena looks up for a moment. "I liberated it from the medical bay before bringing you to the surface."

Harry waits, then realises he's going to get no more unless he specifically asks. "So why didn't you mention it earlier?"

She furrows her brow. "There was no reason to. The tricorder was of little use to us before now."

Don't you just love logic? Harry shakes his head. "Is there anything else you liberated that you haven't told me about?"

"No! This is all, Ensign."

Harry sighs as the tricorder goes through it's various beeps and bleeps, sounding like a robotic dawn chorus. "So what does it say?"

T'Prena seems mildly surprised. "The communicator has a subspace band configuration."

"Subspace? You're kidding?"

T'Prena raises her eyebrow again in what is fast becoming a common occurrence around this human.

Harry pulls a face, realising his faux-pas, but doesn't apologise. "Alright, you're not kidding. Subspace though, for a handheld? It's got to have one hell of a range."

"Indeed," T'Prena says, agreeing with the substance of the statement. "The problem does not appear to be major. A simple adjustment should reset its operational capacity." She glances at Harry again and offers it back. "Perhaps you would like to _get your hands dirty?_"

Harry looks strangely at her. Is she making fun of him? Vulcans... never can tell what they're thinking. Taking the communicator, he follows her advice, a smile appearing on his face as white noise immediately issues from the speaker. After experimenting a little, he gets a feel for the odd layout and changes the transmission to cover a specific carrier wave. T'Prena recognises what he's doing and just nods.

"Now let's see if they're out there." Harry brings the pickup to his lips. "Ensign Kim to Voyager. Voyager, do you read me?"


	12. The Sun Trap

About ninety minutes before the ship's ETA, Kathryn meets Tom in one of the cabins and outlines her suspicions about the Maquis to him. Her first theory, that they might attempt to evade the law by staying in the Delta Quadrant, is shot down almost straight away though.

"Chakotay's devoted to his cause, Captain, I'll say that much for him. I can't see him wanting to stay here any longer than we do."

Kathryn sighs. "Alright, then let's think this through. Assuming he woke up on the array in the same manner we did, what then? Suspiria said that her android was supposed to 'facilitate our departure'."

"I think we can assume that it did," Tom says.

"Right! So they're returned here and find themselves floating in the middle of a wrecker's yard. All of those ships..." A shiver runs through her. "Like you said, they don't want to stick around, but their main engines are out. They must have been scavenging for parts judging by all the jury-rigging we found. It's slow work, supplies must be running out, then..."

"The Voyager falls into their laps," Tom finishes. "It'd be a good prize for the Maquis, especially with all the new tech."

Kathryn nods in agreement. "But more importantly it's a lifeline. However much damage was done to it, it has to be in better shape than this. So they take the Voyager, then head to this planet. Why?"

Tom thinks about it for a moment. "They want to find out more about the array. If Suspiria has kept herself incommunicado, all they know is they're facing someone or something with the technology to throw them around the galaxy at will. Would you want to go up against that blind?"

She grimaces. "Not especially."

"So if they saw the same energy pulses from the array that we did, they have to know there's a connection. Maybe whoever's on the planet can help them? Either they can talk to Suspiria and have them sent home, or give them information about her they can use."

"Makes sense," Kathryn agrees. "I suppose that has to be our working theory for now. But-"

"Captain," a voice interrupts from a wall panel.

Kathryn reaches over and hits the receive button. "What is it?"

"We're picking up a subspace transmission on the Voyager's carrier. It's from Ensign Kim."

Kathryn's eyes widen. "On my way," she transmits before cutting the line and gesturing for Tom to follow as she almost leaps up and leaves the cabin, hurrying the short distance back to the cockpit.

"This is Ens... ry Kim to any... yager. Please respon..." The voice coming over the speakers is artifacting badly and only snatches of sentences can be heard. From the repetition, it's clear enough who's transmitting, but from where?

"I've tried responding," Jeff reports as Kathryn swings back into her seat, "but I'm not getting through to him."

"Are sensors picking up anything that could be the Voyager?"

Jeff looks at his screen but shakes his head. "Sorry Captain, the ion trail is still too weak for it to be close by."

"Alright, let's see if we can triangulate his position using the signal decay," Kathryn says, tapping furiously at her board as Kim's voice starts to get weaker. "Just a little longer, Ensign," she murmurs. Then all falls silent.

"The transmission's failed at the source," Jeff states.

"We have something at least," Kathryn replies. "Seems it came from the same planet we're headed for. If the Voyager is still there, they're a stone's throw away from each other."

"Could the Maquis be transporting our missing crew down to the surface?" Rachel asks the room at large.

Tom's visions of an overrun Sickbay briefly come to the forefront of his mind again. Samantha is listed among the missing and the idea that they might recover Voyager, only to find her body long dead is making him feel sick. "Hope so, Ensign. Hope so."

Kathryn briefly looks up at him, then returns uneasily to her thoughts.

* * *

Sam wakes with a start, then pulls a face in familiar disappointment. He was having such a nice dream too. Well, until Captain Janeway started balancing on a unicycle while playing a banjo with her feet. That was just odd. Being awarded the Medal of Honor though...

Glancing around, he finds that the ground is still dusty as ever, as is the air, but thankfully it's much cooler now. Rising shakily, it's not until he's about halfway to his feet that he realises his excruciating injuries are now gone. But how?

"Ya took ye time." A Borg drone sits a short distance away, smoking a makeshift pipe.

Sam doesn't have the energy to faint, so drops back down in a sitting position. "Am I still dreaming?" he asks hopefully.

"No!"

"Oh!" There's a long pause. "Did you heal me?"

"Yeah!"

Sam nods, taking in the information. "Are you a Borg?"

The drone scowls at him. "It wa' the eyepiece wha' gave it away, weren't it. Bloody Starfleet!"

"Well... it's just you're not very... Borg-ish."

"How d'ya mean?"

"The pipe mainly," Sam tells him, indicating the hollow metal rods he's puffing on.

The drone sighs. "Just a wee peccadillo o' mine." He looks at Sam with a conspiratorial expression and asks in a hushed whisper, "Ya got any whiskey on ya? None o' that replicator crap, the real stuff's wa' ah'm after."

Sam slowly shakes his head.

"No? Guess ah shouldnae expected much from a uniformed pansy like you."

Sam blinks. He's talking to a Borg drone... a Scottish Borg drone! "You sure I'm not dreaming?"

The drone shakes his head. "Why?"

"Oh, just hoping. I seem to be having a lot of trouble with my life and that would've explained a lot."

* * *

Ensign Murphy paces the cave that their little group have been hiding in. It's dry, dark and still oppressively hot, but it's shelter nevertheless. He looks out to the baking desert landscape, growls, then continues to pace.

Lang groans. "Murphy, you're tiring me out just watching you. You were told to conserve energy, so just sit down!"

_That's another drawback_, Murphy thinks. _Sitting in close proximity to a group of people that grind on the nerves like an industrial sander over the spine_.

"Yeah, sit Murphy. Do us all a favour will you?" Ballard mutters.

He storms over to her. "You want to start something, tech girl?"

Ballard looks up at him, puzzled. "What kind of insult is 'tech girl'?"

"Okay, you want a real insult you scraggy-haired bitch?"

Ballard slowly rises to her feet and stands inches from Murphy's face. "If you've got a problem with me, John-boy, why don't you come out and say it?" she spits.

Murphy moves his head closer, 'til he and Ballard are almost nose-to-nose. "Fine, you hum! It's annoying, it's irritating and you only know one tune. If I hear Pop Goes the frickin' Weasel one more time today, I swear I'll kick you so hard you'll achieve orbit."

Ballard looks distinctly unimpressed. "Annoying? I'll tell you annoying. You've been pacing that same bit of ground for an hour. One whole god damn hour. Do you know how many steps that is?" she asks bitterly. "Three thousand, one hundred and twenty two steps, that's how many. And every single one of them is burned into my brain!"

"The fact you even bothered to count them just shows how much a neurotic, obsessive, anal-retent-"

Lang screams in frustration, then glares at both officers who have now fallen silent. "You two have to be the most immature people I've ever seen. You've been arguing constantly, CONSTANTLY, since we got here. Now SHUT UP! BOTH OF YOU!" she screeches.

Murphy sneers at her. "And you've done nothing but whine and complain since we got here too."

"Grow up, Murphy! You complain to me about being annoying? You're a child, you don't deserve to wear that uniform!"

"I earned this uniform you egotistical-"

He doesn't finish the sentence though before Lang lunges for him. If Telfer hadn't chose that moment to speak up, who knows what might have resulted from this particular spat. "I'm dying!" he cries out.

Everyone stops and turns to face him. Ballard moves over to him. She can see Telfer huddling in the far corner of the cave, running a medical tricorder's probe over himself and frowning. "What's wrong, Billy?"

"My white blood cell count is elevated and my body temperature is up point two degrees. I'm sick."

Murphy sighs in despair. "Point two degrees is normal, you moron. You probably have a cold or something. You're certainly not going to die, unless you asphyxiate when I shove that tricorder down your frickin' throat."

Ballard shoots him a glares and holds one finger up in warning. "Once more," she threatens. Murphy turns away, muttering something about hypochondriacs as Telfer begins to run another scan on himself. Lang sits back down and Ballard stays with Telfer to try and calm him. The situation is defused... until Scalie enters.

The Gorn shambles into the cave, his skin punched full of holes and his scales shrivelled and cracked. His eyes flicker around madly and his orifices are oozing a thick purple blood. He collapses just feet away from Lang, who suppresses a deep urge to run away.

Telfer runs to Scalie's side and scans him as the others look on in horror. He shakes his head. "The damage is too severe."

To everyone's amazement, Scalie's cracked lips part. "There's some..thing... out... warn... Cav..t" he croaks. Then with a last gasp of breath, he's still. The cave suddenly feels very cold and very small.

"What killed him?" Murphy demands.

"There are multiple entry holes in his body, powder burns... he was shot," Telfer concludes. "With a slugthrower of some kind."

Murphy swallows. Slugthrowers are primitive weapons, easily countered. But without even basic combat armour available to the crew, they may as well be phaser rifles. "So he was murdered," Murphy states. "By the natives presumably."

"Wait!" Telfer exclaims. He hammers at the tricorder. "I'm picking something else up. There's..." He taps a few more buttons and freezes. "Er... guys?" he begins. "We _are_ going to die."

"DON'T START!" Murphy yells at him.

Ballard and Lang take his statement more seriously though. "What are you detecting?" Ballard asks softly, not entirely sure if she wants to know.

Telfer gestures to Scalie's body, indicating the huge abscesses on the skin, the blistered scales, the oozing blood and whitened eyes. "He has advanced ultraviolet radiation poisoning. That's what caused most of this damage here."

Murphy looks briefly concerned, but the expression passes. "He's been outside in the sunlight since we got here. We've been in the shade, so we're safe," he declares, trying to rally the group and most probably himself.

Telfer shakes his head. "I've scanned the cave. The UV concentration isn't as great, but there's still enough in here to kill us. Gorns are vulnerable to UV, so it progressed faster with him, but eventually we'll all end up the same." He turns to look at the others, a haunted look in his eyes. "You know what ultraviolet radiation can do to you? It's horrible. First your skin burns, then blisters, cancerous tissues often form. Then the radiation reaches your cells. It kills them, ionises them. You feel queasy, then violently nauseous. You start to bleed from orifices as blood vessels collapse. Dysentery develops as the lining of the intestines dies. Your-"

"SHUT THE HELL UP! I don't want to know." Agitated, Murphy begins to pace the cave again, trying to think. "Do you suppose anyone else has found out?"

"Who knows!" Lang says miserably.

"Then we have to tell them. Problem is, whoever goes out there gets a large dose of UV, possibly terminal." He looks over to Ballard and gets the middle finger salute. "Relax," he sneers at her. "I was just going to ask if the commbadges are working yet."

Ballard still glares at him, but moves over to the rock she was perched on and picks four small chevrons up. "I've configured them to cut through the interference, but we still need a power source in order to talk to anyone. That kid sure did a great job of draining them," she answers sourly.

Murphy considers that. The phasers he and Lang have will surely be needed for defence. He idly wonders why their commbadges were drained but not their weapons. _Maybe she wants us to fight_, he muses, feeling uncomfortable with that thought. There has to be another source of power. Then his eyes fall on Telfer's blinking tricorder. He quickly walks over and snatches it from his hands. Telfer protests, but Murphy flashes him a knife-sharp look and he sinks back to the floor.

"You're a real asshole, you know that?" Ballard says with pure poison.

Murphy snorts as he tosses the tricorder to her. Like he cares. "Use this for your power source."

Ballard plucks it out of the air, looks at it, then wordlessly sits down and starts to prise the back off.

* * *

Maj Turram paces the length of the meeting hall. There isn't really much else to do on this planet except be mind-numbingly bored. He'd met with his advisors earlier and done some shouting. It had been vaguely amusing watching his inferiors squirm, but unless he wanted to shout himself hoarse he couldn't do it all day. He could always... no! He'd broken one of her ribs last time, she wouldn't last another. And he'd hate to see his favourite source of amusement die. He's reminiscing better days when his Second, Kal Rodjan, hurries inside.

"Maj!" he cries out breathlessly.

Turram scowls at being interrupted, but it must be important for Rodjan to barge his way in here like this. He indicates for his Second to continue. "Sir, the hunting party. They have casualties."

Turram's surprise is evident. "Casualties?" The party consists of twelve skilled Kazon trackers who hunt the largest prey on the planet's surface - a sort of small, shrivelled gopher-beast. It's always too tough and tastes of boot leather, but it's food. The thought of those pathetic creatures inflicting casualties amongst his men would be amusing if not so completely absurd.

"Yes sir, only two survivors. It looks like energy weapons."

Turram's blood turns to ice. "The Normagar?" he asks insistently. If the Normagar have found them, they might as well abandon camp right now.

"No sir, they're... well... they're some race we've never seen before. The hunting party saw several of them and were attacked by a large lizard in their colours."

Turram gawps. "They're giant lizards?" _That could be worse than the Normagar_.

"No sir, only one of them. The others looked closer in appearance to us as far as they could tell."

Turram mulls this over, finally reaching the important question. "How many more of them are there?"

"Kalnor guesses around sixty, sir. But they seem to be divided into smaller groups and hesitant to enter the sunlight."

Turram can barely contain his grin. Energy weapons and who knows what else lies within a divided enemy. And the sun-sickness that plagues them on this planet has trapped them in their shelters. Perfect! Even with just slugthrowers, a large enough force should be able to overcome them. This will be both profitable and enjoyable. Only one thing could possibly make it better. He nods to Rodjan. "Assemble a war party at the barracks and bring only the best weapons. By morning, the Oglamar will have enough firepower to challenge even the Nistrim!" Rodjan bows respectfully and hurries out of the room, leaving the Maj to his own task.

* * *

A young woman runs down a long corridor in near pitch darkness. Every now and then she passes the only sources of illumination - a series of torches laid down in the recesses of the wall. The fire from them is a dazzling blue and white which she has never seen before. But there's no time to admire them as she hears the clatter of rocks behind her. Her pursuer is closing in. A large shadow passes speedily by one of the torches, accompanied by a vile grunting sound. The woman sees a faint light ahead of her. Is she finally coming to an exit, or is it just another torch? If she can only keep up her pace, she might be able to escape.

As she nears the light, it becomes more obvious that it's streaming in from an open doorway. Forgetting the pain that pulses throughout her, she races for freedom, only to run into a set of iron bars which drop over the exit. "NO!" She drops to her knees, unable to go any further. A foul stench from the creature behind her pervades the corridor. She backs against the wall, but there's no escape. As a dark alien mass emerges from the shadow and speeds towards her, she screams...

Her eyes flick open. Breathing quickly and saturated with sweat, she wildly takes in her surroundings, then sighs, relieved that it was only a nightmare. The distinction however is difficult to appreciate. As she looks around her empty, filth coated cell, she wonders how much longer it'll be until she's executed. That she's begun to pray for the finality of death disgusts the girl she used to be. The girl who dared reach for the sky, defying every convention of her race to do so. But that person is growing ever weaker under the continuous use of the Kazon. As she hears a faint strain of voices in the corridor, her eyes start to well up. _Please, not today!_

Maj Turram saunters down the corridor and on reaching the cell, takes a tumbler key from his pocket. Sliding it into the lock, he twists it methodically and swings open the metal grille. The female inside, clothed only in a tattered and threadbare dress, struggles to shrink into the corner as he approaches. Turram squats on the floor in front of her. "I have something special planned for you today. There's some newcomers on the surface. We're going to kill them all and you're going to watch us do it."

He waits for a response. A protest, an insult, anything. She just stares though and it's beginning to make his flesh creep. "Well?" he prompts, anger entering his tone. But only more silence greets him. Usually he'd have struck her by now, but due to previous over-enthusiasm, she isn't capable of receiving much more punishment. Growling in frustration, Turram rises and leaves the cell, locking it behind him.

After he disappears from sight, she starts to cry.

* * *

Sam stumbles over a loose stone as he tails the drone to wherever it is he's going. The drone hasn't actually told him their destination, but it has to be better than sitting in the desert twiddling his thumbs, right? The quiet is beginning to disturb him again though, so he asks a question that's been on his mind for a while. "What's your name?"

"Wha'?"

"Your name. I want to know what to call you," Sam pants as they climb an embankment.

The drone considers the question. "Well now lad, ah were called Third o' Twelve as a Borg. But ma reel name's Morgan. Morgan McAfertee," he says with some pride as they make it to the top. "Ya can call me Morgan if ye wan'. Ye'self?"

"Sam Donaldson. I'd shake hands, but..."

Morgan holds up his right arm, now a maintenance and medical device, looks at it and nods. "Nae matter. Pleased t' meet ye, Sam Donaldson. A guid Scottish name ye hav'. Now we McAfertees, we're a proud clan so we are. Went inna battle at Wolf 359. Didnae do too well, but we gave it oor all!" He grins from behind the cybernetics, the effect somewhat unsettling.

Sam shudders. "What ship were you on?"

"The Aberdeen, lad. Highland Class cargo freighter. A fine ship, finest built by the New Scotland Fleetyards," he says wistfully. "Crashed it inter the cube we did. Huge explosion... f' all the bloody good it did. We managed t' beam aboard the Melbourne." He looks down at his arm again. "They got us there." His voice is barely a whisper now, but he forces the memory to the back of his mind. Can't be feeling sorry for himself, not when there's things to do.

"Where are we going?"

"Did ah nae tell ya? T' see ma shipmates." He grins again. "Bin a while since we had friendly company."

Sam stops dead in his tracks. "What... they're more of you?"

Morgan looks back at him for a long moment before starting to chuckle, the chuckle eventually turning into a belly laugh.

Sam starts to feel stupid. Not an unusual occurrence.

"Ah!" Morgan exclaimed, getting his breath back. "Sorry lad, just ye face were a picture. Dinnae fash yeself, they're harmless really, they'll be pleased t' meet ye."

This is turning into one weird day. "Okay... um, how many shipmates do you have then?"

"Twenny-eight... no, ah tell a lie, the blue fella rusted up yestreen. Twenny-seven noo."

A bit small for a Borg cube surely? "Out of how many?"

That sobers Morgan up somewhat. "Ye din' wanna ken. This world..." He looks at the Fleeter, then starts to walk again.

"What?" Sam asks as he draws alongside him.

Morgan looks pained. "Ye ever hear the legend o' the Elephant's Graveyard?"

Sam chills. "Where they go to die... alone."

Morgan nods. "Who can ken how many bones hav' turned t' dust under oor feet. The sun gets most o' them, an' if that don' do it the other beasties here make sure."

Sam knew he shouldn't have asked, but can't help himself. "Others?"

"Things from all o'er the galaxy. Lot o' them dinnae even hav' names, none we can translate anyhow. They all come here. Nae by choice mind, but they come. The wee lass sees t' that."

Alarm bells start to ring in Sam's head. "The wee lass?"

"We din' ken who she is. Just when she had nae use f'r us anymair, she sent us all here. T' die." He looks at Sam. "In a ways, yer lucky she caught ya on yer own."

_Suspiria! Oh crap, she can't have.  
_

"But I wasn't on my own. I was on a ship. We were supposed to get it back, then go home."

Morgan turns to him. "That whit the lassie told ya?" he asks skeptically.

The sinking feeling in his stomach tells Sam that he hasn't been singled out as a victim this time. They've all been double crossed. His head buzzing with that he's learned, he bolts, racing off across the dunes.

The surprised Morgan tries to match the pace, but can't hope to keep up with him. "Laddie!" he cries after a few minutes. "Will ye slow doun. Ah'm nae the man ah was!" In his prime, he would have outran Sam easily, however age and these damned cybernetics have done him in for speed.

Sam stops and turns to Morgan, who eventually comes to a gasping halt in front of him. "Listen, I'm sorry if you can't keep up, but the rest of the crew are on this planet somewhere. I have to get to your camp and send out a warning."

Morgan sighs heavily. "Why didnae ye tell me? Ah have a radio right here."

Sam looks pained. "You mean I did all that running for nothing?" He sits down heavily on a rock and clutches his aching feet. That burst of speed wasn't kind to them.

Morgan reaches for his cobbled together radio transmitter, then his face goes ashen as he discovers it's missing. At least it would have done, had Morgan's complexion allowed for a paler shade of white. "Ma radio! Some bugger's pinched ma radio... we've only got three!" He looks urgently to Sam. "We've gotta go back f'r it!"

Sam looks across the desert they've just traversed and groans audibly.

* * *

T'Prena looks up from her work. It has become rather impossible not to notice Ensign Kim's less than agreeable mood as he paces the sand. "Is there something troubling you, Ensign?"

"Yeah!" Harry grumbles. "I'm tired, I'm sick, I'm thirsty and all I've got to show for it is that stupid, decrepit piece of junk. I wish I knew whether the ship even heard me or not." His mouth is becoming painfully dry, but voicing his frustration at least provides some release.

"The most constructive course of action would be to sit and conserve your energy. Simply pacing around is unlikely to provide an answer. Don't you agree?" One of T'Prena's eyebrows arches expectantly.

She _is_ making fun of him. "Do you think what you're doing is any better?" Harry scowls at her. The communicator is now in several pieces and their one working piece of equipment - the tricorder - lies dormant to one side, its guts exposed. "So much for it just needing a recharge."

"As I informed you, Ensign, the tricorder's power cell is incompatible. I need to exchange the entire supply-regulator."

"And you're doing such a great job of that. Why don't you just admit defeat so we can get out of here? Or is that not in the Vulcan vocabulary?"

T'Prena twitches slightly as she returns to what she's doing. "Without the appropriate tools, I am unable to work as fast as you would prefer. The task simply needs patience, Ensign. Something of which you seem to be in short supply."

"Did I just get insulted by a Vulcan?" Harry asks incredulously. He can feel his temper start to rise and turns away, not wanting to say something he'll probably regret later.

"Merely stating an observation," T'Prena comments, her tone as dry as the air. Expecting yet another retort, she's... gratified when it fails to arrive.

Harry is standing behind her, frozen to the spot and slack-jawed as he stares ahead in abject terror. He'd been accepted to the Academy just after they tried to wipe out the Federation. Even the sight of one was the nightmare of every cadet. The Borg! There's a thump, then a blur of movement as the drone - moving faster than it should feasibly be able to do - races towards them.

Harry trembles, his mind telling him to run, but his feet not accepting the mental command. As the drone closes in, his feet finally decide to obey him, but in his haste he stumbles and falls backwards. He scrambles to get up, but it's too late. The drone is on him now and it... runs straight past him. _What?_

"MA RADIO! Wha' ye done t' ma radio?" The drone sounds almost mournful as it drops to the ground and starts picking up the pieces of the communicator. Another figure not far behind him, dressed in a grey Starfleet issue vest, collapses to the sand, complaining about his feet and the average size of planets.

T'Prena looks at the drone, the human and finally Ensign Kim, in that order. There is only one word she can think of at this moment. "Fascinating!"


End file.
